A right-wing group that pledged to "continue the excellent work of the American Legislative Exchange Council" (ALEC) and promote voter ID has published a thinly-sourced blog post that purports to show people of color and the poor are actually helped by voter ID laws, an unsupported claim that is being hyped as a "study" by outlets like Fox News and the Daily Caller. More comprehensive research has demonstrated that these laws threaten to disenfranchise around 5 million people nationally, primarily people of color, students, and the poor.
In April, ALEC disbanded its Public Safety and Elections Task Force to distance itself from the controversial "Stand Your Ground" and voter suppression laws that had prompted a public backlash and an exodus of corporate funders (30 corporations have dropped their ALEC membership as of August 6). Soon after, a right-wing group called the "National Center for Public Policy Research" (NCPPR) announced that it would "continue the excellent work of [ALEC]" and form a Voter Identification Task Force to promote voter ID laws.
The only activity thus far from the NCPPR task force appears to be a blog post that tries to turn the tables on critics of voter ID laws and divert attention away from the well-documented fact that the laws are a cynical and politically-motivated effort to suppress the vote of Democratic constituencies like people of color, college students, and the poor, who lack the state-issued IDs the laws require.
