As Democrats try to push the For the People Act through the Senate, some of the party’s top figures are changing their tune on voter ID rules they previously called “racist.”
In an effort to garner bipartisan support for the act, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has proposed a set of compromises. One would expand voter ID laws, long a legislative objective for the GOP. The line from the Manchin memo: “Require voter ID with allowable alternatives (utility bill, etc.) to prove identity to vote”.
When asked about the compromise on Thursday, Stacey Abrams, the former gubernatorial candidate for Georgia and Fair Fight Action founder, who has long railed against voter ID laws, said she “absolutely” could support Manchin’s proposal even if voter ID was a part of it. “That’s one of the fallacies of Republican talking points that have been deeply disturbing. No one has ever objected to having to prove who you are to vote. It’s been part of our nation’s history since the inception of voting,” Abrams told CNN.
However, many top Democrats have been deriding voter ID laws as suppressive and racist for years, including Abrams.
As recently as this past March, she referred to Georgia’s recent voting-rights bills, which included expanding voter ID laws, as “racist” and “a redux of Jim Crow in a suit and tie.”
