Since Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, Republican-controlled legislatures nationwide have accelerated their past efforts to restrict access to voting. Now the Massachusetts Republican Party is trying to follow in the footsteps of those wide-ranging efforts with a proposed voter ID ballot measure.
In for Jim Braude on Greater Boston, Adam Reilly was joined by Tom Mountain, vice chair of the MassGOP, and Rahsaan Hall, director of the Racial Justice Program at ACLU Massachusetts.
“The way voting works right now is flawed,” Mountain said. “What we’re aiming for is something very simple, and that is for voter IDs for any citizen who wishes to vote. Now, you need an identification in order to pick up a prescription, to board an airline, to cash a check, to buy alcohol. ... But for some reason, we don’t have a requirement in the state for the most important civic duty, which is to vote, to show a voter ID.”
Hall disagreed.
“[This is] another attempt to disenfranchise voters who are historically marginalized,” he said. “Statistics show that the people who are less likely to have forms of photo identification are people of color, senior citizens, the disabled, younger people and people are either non-binary or transgender. So, to put forward an initiative like this under the auspices of protecting the integrity of the vote — when there is zero evidence of voter fraud — is ludIcrous.”
WATCH: MassGOP Vice Chair and ACLU Racial Justice Program Director debate voter ID proposal
