Bishop criticizes voter ID objections after registration errors

Jackson’s argument

Bishop Earl Walker Jackson, a nondenominational Christian leader, told Fox News Digital that arguments against voter identification requirements demean Black Americans and other minority voters. He called the claim that they cannot obtain identification “deeply insulting” and “deeply offensive.”

Jackson accused Democrats and others on the political left of opposing voter ID requirements to gain an electoral advantage. He also argued that any ballot cast by a noncitizen improperly weakens the voting power of eligible citizens. Noncitizen voting and mistaken registration are not the same: A person can appear on a voter roll without casting a ballot.

What the registration review found

Reuters found that more than 30,000 people who identified themselves as noncitizens had been mistakenly added to voter rolls since 2000. The cases occurred in California, Illinois, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Virginia.

Reuters attributed the registrations to software problems and clerical mistakes rather than an organized effort to register noncitizens. It could not establish how many of the people involved, if any, had cast ballots.

Don Palmer, a senior legal fellow for election integrity at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital that he believes the total understates the problem because some states have not conducted audits or used tools to identify noncitizens on their rolls. Palmer called for registration systems to verify both a person’s identity and citizenship. Voter identification confirms who a voter is, while citizenship checks address whether that person is eligible to vote.