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Unbiased presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has lengthy opposed requiring voters to indicate ID in an effort to vote, in response to a few of his resurfaced writings and interviews.
The fabric reviewed by Fox Information Digital was revealed within the run-up to that yr’s 2008 presidential election and included Kennedy calling voter ID legal guidelines “racially rancid” and claiming voter fraud was “non-existent.”
Certainly one of his earlier writings—a comic book e-book co-authored with investigative journalist Greg Palast and sponsored by quite a few liberal and left-wing organizations—particularly claimed that voter ID necessities discriminated towards black folks.
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Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. speaks at a marketing campaign occasion on the Royal Oak Music Theater in Royal Oak, Michigan, on Sunday, April 21, 2024. (Emily Elconin/Bloomberg through Getty Photos)
“One in ten People would not have a government-issued ID as a result of they do not journey overseas, so they do not have a passport, and so they do not drive a automotive (,) so they do not have a driver. (‘) licensing will increase to 1 in 5 when coping with the African American neighborhood. And certainly, acquiring a government-issued ID is an impediment,” Kennedy wrote on web page 16 of the publication. humorous.
On the identical web page, Kennedy described voter ID legal guidelines as “racially rancid,” citing 1000’s of voters who had been turned away on the polls as a result of they’d an expired allow — or no allow in any respect — throughout an undisclosed earlier election as a result of they ” had been disproportionately black.
Kennedy wrote on one other web page that an Idaho requirement for newly registered voters within the state to indicate ID in an effort to have a mail-in poll counted is “a New Voter Block-the-Vote Trick” was. He later described voter ID legal guidelines as “the most recent rip-off to steal your vote,” and particularly referred to those that turned away from the polls as a result of they could not show their id as “stolen votes.”
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“There isn’t a such factor as voter fraud… everybody who has ever studied these nonpartisan, bipartisan teams (has) mentioned it’s merely not an issue on this nation,” Kennedy additionally wrote within the comedian.
Kennedy additionally claimed that voter fraud “would not exist.” a 2008 HuffPost interview as he compares voter ID necessities to Jim Crow legal guidelines and accuses Republicans of utilizing fears round voter fraud as an excuse to make it tougher for minorities to vote.
“Republicans have used this to create all types of obstacles and boundaries that basically mimic the outdated ballot taxes that had been utilized in Southern states in the course of the Jim Crow interval to maintain black folks from voting. suppressing the votes, not simply of blacks, however of Hispanics and American Indians, of younger folks and seniors,” Kennedy mentioned.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his operating mate, Nicole Shanahan, at a marketing campaign occasion in Oakland, California, on March 26, 2024. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg through Getty Photos)
That very same yr, in a bit revealed by the liberal newspaper Rolling Stone, Kennedy conceded that “the requirement to indicate a government-issued ID doesn’t appear unreasonable,” however once more asserted that conventional Democratic voters, whom he described on the time as younger voters , minorities and seniors “usually would not have a driver’s license or identification card.”
He repeated related claims throughout an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow simply days earlier than the 2008 presidential election. “One in 5 black voters doesn’t have a driver’s license. Which means should you require a driver’s license, you lose 20% of the black voters on this nation,” he mentioned.
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Fox Information Digital has reached out to Kennedy’s marketing campaign for remark.
Regardless of his earlier claims about it, voter ID legal guidelines stay in style throughout the nation. Quite a few polls lately have proven that greater than three-quarters of People help requiring an ID to vote.
Kennedy is operating with rich entrepreneur and philanthropist Nicole Shanahan, a former Democrat who he introduced he would be a part of at a rally in Oakland, California, final month.
Get the most recent updates from the 2024 marketing campaign path, unique interviews and extra on our Fox Information Digital election hub.
Brandon Gillespie is an affiliate editor at Fox Information. Observe him on X at @BGillespieAL.
