Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson on Tuesday argued that it is "racist" not to require voters to present identification.
Carson was asked about the issue by former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) during a conference on "election integrity."
"Do you think that voter ID is racist?" Bachmann wondered. "And do you think that we've entered into a new era of voter fraud?"
"This is the dividing point between whether America remains a free and prosperous nation or whether we turn into something else," Carson opined. "There's one group that believes in traditional American values. There's another group that thinks it's all wrong and that we need to fundamentally change America."
According to Carson, liberals "can lie, they can cheat, they can do anything because the ends justify the means."
"As far as voter ID is concerned, you know, of course it's not racist," he said. "What is racist is saying that certain people don't have the common sense or the ability to get the identification, saying that they're too stupid, saying that they're incapable. What a bunch of garbage."
A 2017 study by University of California San Diego determined that voter ID does have a disciminatory impact on minority voters.
The study found “that strict photo identification laws have a differentially negative impact on the turnout of Hispanics, Blacks, and mixed-race Americans in primaries and general elections."
