EXCLUSIVE: Black bishop and author Earl Walker Jackson blasted Democrats and the left over what he called the “deeply insulting” and “deeply offensive” claim that minorities and African Americans cannot get I.D.s to vote.
Debate erupted this week over voter I.D. requirements after Reuters reported that an investigation found 30,000 noncitizens were “erroneously” registered to vote in 11 states. Jackson, a nondenominational Christian leader and descendant of enslaved ancestors, said the findings underscored what he described as a growing problem of noncitizen voting that disenfranchises American citizens.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Jackson charged, “Why the Democrats are so committed to this can only be explained one way: they think it empowers people who shouldn’t vote to vote, and they believe those people are going to vote for them.”
“This is nothing but a power grab,” he posited, emphasizing that “every vote by a noncitizen does in fact cancel out the vote of an American citizen, or it amplifies it in a way that’s illegal or inappropriate.”
Reuters reported on Wednesday that more than 30,000 self-declared noncitizens were added to U.S. voter rolls since 2000.
The outlet attributed the erroneous registrations to “software glitches and clerical errors” and said its review suggested “inadvertent bureaucratic failures, rather than organized efforts to register immigrants illegally.” Reuters said it was unable to determine how many noncitizens actually cast ballots.
The errors occurred in California, Illinois, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Virginia.
Don Palmer, the senior legal fellow for election integrity with the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital that due to legal loopholes and loose reporting requirements, he believes the 30,000 number “is actually quite low.”
“I think it’s undercounting it. I think those are the identified non-citizens that have been accidentally or erroneously placed on the voter rolls through the mistake of the driver’s license agency. I think it’s much more because we don’t know in a lot of states, either they have not conducted the audits or they’re not using tools to find noncitizens that may have accidentally been placed on the rolls,” he said.
Palmer said “the answer really is that there needs to be more care taken to developing a system of verifying citizenship and you just don’t see that in most states.”
“If they’re going to do voter registration, they need to make sure that there’s a verification in place for identity and for citizenship, just as if you come into an agency and you’re getting a driver’s license or identification card, you’ve got to show that I.D., you’ve got to make sure that your identity is confirmed, similarly, if you’re going to register someone to vote at the driver’s license agency, there needs to be a verification process or a documentation process to ensure that you are a citizen,” he said.
Meanwhile, after hearing the 30,000 figure, Jackson told Fox News Digital that “the sad reality is I’m not shocked.”
“I wonder if it’s more,” he said, adding, “We’ve been told, particularly by Democrats, that that’s not happening, that there’s nothing to see here, and yet we hear again and again documentation that it is happening.”
With this in mind, he decried efforts to resist more stringent voter eligibility verification and identification. He took particular issue with those equating voter I.D. requirements as anti-Black and a new form of Jim Crow.
“Forgive me for being personal about this for a moment, but I just find this deeply insulting and deeply offensive because the implication is that somehow if you are black, no matter how wealthy, educated, well-to-do, somehow getting an ID is a problem for you,” he said.
“But on the other hand, if you’re white, no matter how poor, no matter how uneducated, no matter what your circumstances are, somehow you can get an I.D., that’s not a problem, I mean, it’s preposterous.”
He pointed to the hotel where he was staying as an example.
SIGN UP TO GET THE POLITICS NEWSLETTER
“Look, I’m in a hotel right now … What was the first thing they asked me for when I walked up to the counter? May we see your I.D., please? Should I say, ‘Wait a minute, oh, you’re discriminating against me. You know Black people can’t get I.D.s; how dare you ask?’ he said. “I mean, it’s ridiculous.”
“I don’t hate illegal aliens, I don’t want to see them harmed or hurt, but they don’t have a right to vote in our elections, and they shouldn’t be permitted to do so,” he concluded. “Anybody who wants to say, well, ‘You’re a bigot, you are a hater,’ I mean, they’re going to say that. But I think most Americans are people of goodwill and don’t feel that way at all; we’re simply trying to preserve the integrity of our electoral system.”
