Tipsheet

Raphael Warnock Fact-Checked for Claiming He 'Never Opposed' Voter ID Laws

Reagan McCarthy
Reagan McCarthy  |  June 18, 2021 10:20 AM

Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) attempted to claim that he has “never been opposed” to voter identification laws, when he has actually been a vocal opponent  of identification requirements at the ballot box. He also claimed that no other Democratic lawmakers are opposed to voter ID laws, when the majority of Congressional Democrats have likened identification requirements to racism or even “Jim Crow 2.0.”

"I have never been opposed to voter ID," Warnock told NBC News. "And in fact, I don't know anybody who is — who believes people shouldn't have to prove that they are who they say they are. But what has happened over the years is people have played with common sense identification and put into place restrictive measures intended not to preserve the integrity of the outcome, but to select, certain group."

Warnock likened “unjustifiable” voter identification laws to “Jim Crow” during a 2012 speech.

In his first days in the Senate, he also doubled down on his opposition to voter ID mandates.

"We are witnessing right now a massive and unabashed assault on voting rights unlike anything we have seen since the Jim Crow era,” he said on the floor, referencing voting reforms. “This is Jim Crow in new clothes." 

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Notorious voter suppression truther and failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, another vocal opponent of voter ID laws, also tried to claim she never opposed identification requirements.

In opposing common-sense voter ID provisions included in the voting reform law signed by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R-GA), Warnock and Abrams cost their state $100 million in lost revenue by misleading the public on the law's contents and triggering corporate boycotts.