One Chart Shows the Depressingly Racist Truth About Voter ID Laws You Tried to Ignore

Republicans claim voter ID laws aren't racist, but numbers don't lie.

Sean McElwee, a researcher for progressive think tank Demos, compared measures of racist sentiments among white people in each of the 50 states (such as whether they believe blacks are trustworthy or intelligent) to dataon voting laws in each state, including when they were introduced and how strict they are.

The results are depressing: "Racism is destroying the right to vote." Based on the numbers, it appears the prevalence of strict voter ID laws has a close relationship to the level of white bigotry in each state. The higher the percentage of racist white people in each state, the stricter the restrictions tend to be.

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