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Internet Trolls Irate After Fox’s Shep Smith is Honest About Voter ID Laws

 

Shep-300x208In a short Fox News alert, anchor Shepard Smith updated viewers on the U.S. Supreme Court decision not to reinstate provisions of North Carolina’s controversial voter ID law.  The Justices, in a split decision, decided to leave in place an injunction preventing the requirements from going into effect. The law would have required voters to present identification at the polls, reduced early voting and eliminated North Carlina’s “preregistration” practice.

However, Shep Smith got into some BIG trouble with his loyal conservative followers when he described the North Carolina law like this:  “North Carolina had put in one of those ‘you have to show an ID’ rules which so often in Republican states are designed to keep some minorities from being able to vote, and they tried to reduce the number of voting days,” Smith said during a Wednesday afternoon segment.

Watch below:

And, as Raw Story first pointed out, boy did the internet blow up at him. We’ll just paste a few responses.

But, here’s the thing. The Fourth Circuit of Appeals actually did find that the North Carolina law was discriminatory against minorities. In fact, many courts have struck down similar laws in other states.

As we previously reported, Judge Diana Gribbon Motz said that they weren’t accusing Republican lawmakers who pushed the policy of “racial hatred,” but the panel did find the law unfair to blacks and other minorities

She wrote in the decision:

“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.

Many courts have also found little evidence that voter fraud is “rampant.” Maybe the trolls should apologize to Shep? Doubtful.

[screengrab via Fox News]

 

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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Rachel Stockman is President of Law&Crime which includes Law&Crime Productions, Law&Crime Network and LawAndCrime.com. Under her watch, the company has grown from just a handful of people to a robust production company and network producing dozens of true crime shows a year in partnership with major networks. She also currently serves as Executive Producer of Court Cam, a hit show on A&E, and I Survived a Crime, a new crime show premiering on A&E this fall. She also oversees production of a new daily syndicated show Law&Crime Daily, which is produced in conjunction with Litton Entertainment. In addition to these shows, her network and production company produce programs for Facebook Watch, Cineflix and others. She has spent years covering courts and legal issues, and was named Atlanta Press Club's 'Rising Star' in 2014. Rachel graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and Yale Law School.