Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. says voter ID requirements 'insidious' in talk with fleeing Texas Dems

At least two Texas Democrats return from D.C. after protesting GOP voting bill

Texas State Representative Harold Dutton Jr. on returning home from the group of Democratic lawmakers that fled to Washington D.C. to protest a GOP election reform bill.

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman lashed out against voter ID requirements Friday and said voter fraud is a “fiction.”

The Democrat was speaking virtually Friday morning to Texas House lawmakers who fled to Washington D.C. to thwart new election legislation from passing by Republicans in Texas, according to KDKA-TV. 

Fetterman called the universal voter ID requirements that Republicans are trying to enact “insidious and unnecessary.” He said voter fraud is a “fiction” being used by the GOP to rationalize voter suppression laws. 

“Universal ID and some of these other measures are a solution for a nonexistent problem … of voter fraud,” Fetterman said in his remarks. “And it’s simply voter suppression because they don’t want people voting that they believe aren’t going to ultimately elect them.”

Fetterman said the voter ID requirements risk disenfranchising residents who don’t have access to ID and he downplayed the existence of fraud. 

FILE – In this Jan. 24, 2019, file photo, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman speaks at a news conference in the governor’s Capitol reception room in Harrisburg, Pa. Fetterman running for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat in 2022.  (AP Photo/Marc Levy, File)
(AP)

“It is rare, it is always caught and it is never materially important to the outcome,” Fetterman said, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where he added that the few instances of voter fraud Pennsylvania did experience in 2020 were supporters of former President Donald Trump who were voting on behalf of their dead relatives.

Fetterman is a 2022 Senate candidate in Pennsylvania vying to flip the state blue after incumbent GOP Sen. Pat Toomey announced he won’t seek re-election. 

He was the virtual keynote speaker at the weeklong voting rights conference with the Texas Democrats. 

Source: Read Full Article