Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly on Tuesday night defended state laws requiring residents to have photo identification in order to vote, noting that every African-American person he knows has an ID.
His comments came during a segment on the Supreme Court’s decision not to restore Ohio’s “Golden Week,” during which residents can register to vote and cast ballots, ahead of the 2016 elections.
“In Ohio there’s all kinds of stuff about people wanting to vote at the last minute. They want to vote after the election. They want to vote at 3:00 a.m. And if you say, ‘No, you can’t do any of that,’ then you are disenfranchising them,” O’Reilly said, noting the Supreme Court’s decision not to grant a request to restore “Golden Week.”
O’Reilly and his panelists said that the lower court did not find that eliminating the ability to register and vote right before the election disenfranchised voters.
The Fox host then noted that many people argue that state voter ID laws disproportionately impact minority voters.
“I’m saying to myself, every African American I know has an ID,” he then said. “And not only that, the states that want that will send you an ID, they’ll come to your house with the ID and ice cream. They’ll give you ice cream with the ID.”
Watch the clip via Media Matters:
