Obama at Sharpton Event: Voter ID Supporters Are 'the Real Frauds'

Obama at Sharpton Event: Voter ID Supporters Are 'the Real Frauds'

on Sat, 12 Apr 2014

Speaking at Al Sharpton's National Action Network convention on Friday in New York City, President Barack Obama revealed that he believes voter fraud does not exist, everyone who wants to should be able to vote, even if they cannot provide identifying documentation, and Republicans are plotting to take the franchise away from minorities. 

Obama, who hails from a city known for the Daley Machine and its "vote early and vote often" slogan, ripped Republicans for trying to preserve the integrity of the ballot by reducing voter fraud and requiring voter IDs.

He made the accusation that there is a "well-organized effort" to undo gains the Civil Rights Movement has made in the last 50 years, and he said voting rights are "under particular assault." 

"Voters who want to vote should be able to vote," Obama said. "Period."

He told the activists to stay vigilant and always be on alert for shenanigans designed to strip the right to vote away from seniors, minorities, and women by requiring them to provide identification at the polls. 

"The right to vote is threatened today in a way that it has not been since the Voting Rights Act became law nearly five decades ago," Obama said. 

He added that "justice requires the right to vote," and Republicans want voters to be required to have "IDs that millions of Americans don't have." 

The President then made light of his birth certificate: "I know where my birth certificate is--but a lot of people don't," he said, laughing. He referred to the controversy surrounding his birth certificate as "some crazy stuff."

Obama insisted that no "real widespread voter fraud" exists, and he said that "people who deny our rights by making bogus arguments about voter fraud" are, in fact, "the real frauds." 

He also said that Attorney General Eric Holder will be vigilantly looking at all the voting laws that are passed, along with civic organizations. Additionally, he called on Congress to pass an updated voting rights law. He vowed that he and Holder would "fight back" against what he claimed were voter suppression efforts. 

Obama said there is a reason the agency Holder runs is called the Department of Justice, without mentioning that nobody has yet been indicted for the IRS's role in the targeting of conservative groups like True the Vote, an organization that focuses on election integrity. 

Obama gave his base plenty of red meat, warning them to forever be on the lookout for nefarious plots by conservatives to disenfranchise them. His comments came on the heels of radical comments made at the convention Wednesday by Bertha Lewis, the former ACORN CEO. 

As Breitbart News reported, Lewis said that amnesty opponents and supporters of voter ID laws simply want an "apartheid-type" system in America where the "masters of the universe" can still rule in a country that is changing demographically.