You can't look at policies and their arguments in isolation, you have to look at them in context. In context their purpose is clear.
If people want voter ID, have them issued by City Hall, or print the voter's name on the sample ballot mailed to the voter's home before the election and have them bring that to the polling place.
No they aren't. This is nonsense from people who are benefiting from voter fraud.
Where is the evidence that this occurs in any meaningful number at all?
If you want to claim someone is benefiting, then you must have some evidence that it even occurs.
"After years of preclearance and expansion of voting access, by 2013 African American registration and turnout rates had finally reached near-parity with white registration and turnout rates. African Americans were poised to act as a major electoral force. But, on the day after the Supreme Court issued Shelby County v. Holder, 133 S. Ct. 2612 (2013), eliminating preclearance obligations, a leader of the party that newly dominated the legislature (and the party that rarely enjoyed African American support) announced an intention to enact what he characterized as an “omnibus” election law. Before enacting that law, the legislature requested data on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices. Upon receipt of the race data , the General Assembly enacted legislation that restricted voting and registration in five different ways, all of which disproportionately affected African Americans.
In response to claims that intentional racial discrimination animated its action, the State offered only meager justifications. Although the new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision, they constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist. "
Where is your evidence for intent?
Incidentally... what does the Civil Rights Act have to do with anything? What year is it?
There is no evidence of any substantial incidence of any kind of fraud voter ID laws might address. If you disagree, please present the evidence.
> Where is your evidence for intent?
The numerous admissions by Republicans of partisan motivation for and partisan benefits from voter ID over many years, e.g.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/us/some-republicans-ac...
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/accidental-republica...
You do understand where modern precedent for the DOJ to step in for state and local elections comes from, right?
1950s weren't that long ago and the Republican party as a whole is not all that different when it comes to treatment of minorities. Sure, the rest of the country is here in the 21st century in regards to voter rights -- I can't say the same for Republicans, who again, are attempting to restrict voting rights of D leaning demographics.
Now your standard is to prove intent? Sorry, I am not a mind reader. As stated previous, the courts have ruled (recently in VA for example) that Republican legislators have used their positions in government to systematically disenfranchise minority voters. Whether they meant to? I couldn't tell you, but it is a legal fact determined by our court systems.
Again, this is a legal fact (pending appeal) as things exist, today, in this year of a Republican legislative body disenfranchising black voters. Argue intent all you like, I prefer stick with the facts.
> Diaz's order came in response to allegations that the General Assembly violated the Voting Rights Act by packing too many African-Americans in the 3rd District represented by Rep. Robert C. "Bobby" Scott, D-Newport News.
http://www.dailypress.com/news/politics/dp-nws-redistricting...
I'm done here. All I am doing is repeating myself. All you are doing is ignoring evidence and presenting an impossible standard as your defense.
And since I am feeling particularly generous today, I will assume you are arguing in good faith and really are not aware that no evidence of widespread voter fraud of any kind exists from the last election.
> There have been just four documented cases of voter fraud in the 2016 election
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/0-...
"Faced with this record, we can only conclude that the North Carolina General Assembly enacted the challenged provisions of the law with discriminatory intent."
Example of Countries with voter id laws: India ,Libya,Ireland, Spain, Greece, France, Malta, Belgium, and Italy