U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has pledged to use the resources of his Justice Department to fight against voter ID and other state-level laws that protect the integrity of the ballot process, which he claims seek to “disadvantage minorities.”
Standing alongside Vice President Kamala Harris in Selma, Ala., on Sunday, Garland described voter ID laws and other ballot integrity measures as “discriminatory, burdensome, and unnecessary,” according to Breitbart News. Both were speaking at an event to commemorate the 59th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday assaults against civil rights demonstrators.
Garland reflected on the history of voting rights for black Americans since the end of slavery following the Civil War, which he claimed has “never been steady” even to the present day. He also claimed, without evidence, that voter ID laws have somehow made it harder “for millions of eligible voters to vote and to elect the representatives of their choice.”“Those measures include practices and procedures that make voting more difficult; redistricting maps that disadvantage minorities; and changes in voting administration that diminish the authority of locally elected or nonpartisan election administrators,” he said during a speech at Selma’s Tabernacle Baptist Church. “Such measures threaten the foundation of our system of government.”