Most U.S. states have some form of voter ID law whereby voters are asked or required to present an ID, preferably with a photograph. In 2005, the Supreme Court, in a decision written by liberal Justice John Paul Stevens validated such laws as constitutional. In 2008, equally liberal former president Jimmy Carter also endorsed voter ID as a legitimate way to safeguard the integrity of the vote. Recent polls show a vast majority of Americans supporter voter ID laws, including some 60 percent and Democrats and nearly 2/3rds of blacks and Hispanics, two minority demographics that President Obama won in the 2012 reelection campaign (see screencaps below page break). What's more, 73% of Americans believe such laws are NOT discriminatory.
Despite these inconvenient truths, however, MSNBC's Toure believes that voter ID laws are, you guessed it, a racially-charged conspiracy by conservative Republicans, particularly in the South, to disenfranchise blacks. Toure laid out his case in a closing commentary on the Monday, February 25 edition of MSNBC's The Cycle. The transcript of Toure's closing commentary follows:









