Resurfaced comments made by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. show the independent presidential candidate blasted voter ID laws as “racially rancid” and a “scam to steal your vote.”
The left-wing presidential candidate, who ran in the Democrat primary before launching an independent campaign, has been a longtime opponent of requiring voters to show proof of identification to cast a ballot, his past comments show.
The material was published throughout 2008 in the run-up to that year’s presidential election.
At the time, Kennedy argued that voter ID laws were “racist” and claimed voter fraud was “non-existent.”
The published material was revealed in a report by Fox News.
One of his past writings was a comic book co-authored with investigative journalist Greg Palast.
Numerous liberal and left-wing organizations sponsored the comic.
The comic specifically claimed that voter ID requirements were discriminatory against black people.
“One out of every ten Americans don’t have a government-issued ID because they don’t travel abroad, so they don’t have passports, and they don’t drive a car[,] so they don’t have drivers[‘] licenses,” Kennedy wrote on page 16 of the comic.
“The number rises to one in five when you’re dealing with the African American community.
“And, indeed, for those people to get a government-issued ID – it’s an obstacle.”
On the same page, Kennedy described voter ID laws as “racially rancid.”
He cites thousands of voters rejected at the polls for having an expired license or no license at all.
Kennedy claimed the voters were rejected during an unnamed previous election being “disproportionately” black.
On another page, Kennedy wrote that an Idaho requirement for newly registered voters in the state to show ID to have a mail-in ballot counted was “a new voter Block-the-Vote trick.”
He later described voter ID laws as “the newest scam to steal your vote,” and specifically called those turned away from the polls for not being able to prove their identity as “stolen votes.”
“Voter fraud is non-existent…,” RFK Jr. claimed.
“Everybody who has ever studied this – non-partisan, bi-partisan groups – [has] said that it is simply not a problem in this country.”
Kennedy also claimed voter fraud “doesn’t exist” during a 2008 HuffPost interview.
He compared voter ID requirements to Jim Crow laws and accused Republicans of using fear surrounding voter fraud as an excuse to make it harder for minorities to vote.
“Republicans have seized on this in order to erect all kinds of obstacles and impediments that essentially mimic the old poll taxes that were used in the southern states during the Jim Crow period, to keep Black people from voting,” Kennedy said.
“Today, they’re directed toward suppressing the votes, not only blacks but Hispanics and American Indians, of young people of senior citizens.”
That same year, Kennedy admitted in a piece published by liberal outlet Rolling Stone that “the requirement to show a government-issued ID doesn’t seem unreasonable,” but claimed again that traditional Democrat voters, which, at the time, he described as young voters, minorities and seniors, “often have no driver’s licenses or state ID cards.”
He repeated similar claims during an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow just days ahead of the 2008 presidential election.
“One in five Black voters does not have a driver’s license,” he said.
“That means if you require a driver’s license, you’re getting rid of 20% of the black voters in this country.”
Despite his past claims about them, voter ID laws remain popular across the country.
Numerous polls taken in recent years have shown more than three-quarters of Americans support requiring proof of identification to cast a ballot.
Kennedy is running alongside wealthy radical leftist Nicole Shanahan.
Shanahan is an anti-police former Democrat megadonor who Kennedy announced would join his ticket during a rally in Oakland, California, last month.
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