Minorities are "gullible" for believing that Republicans want to suppress their votes, a conservative Republican lawmaker told a right-wing radio show in Colorado.
Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) made the comments to KVOR personality Richard Randall, the Colorado Times Recorder reported Thursday.
Lamborn said he was concerned about allegations of voter fraud.
“The Democrats lie when they say, ‘Oh, this is to suppress votes,’ or ‘This is to hurt minorities.’ It’s just a lie,” Lamborn argued. “They want to stir up minorities who are gullible and believe that garbage.”
The Colorado Times Recorder spoke with election expert Richard Hasen.
“I am aware of no evidence supporting the statement of Rep. Lamborn that minority voters are more ‘gullible’ to supposedly false claims of voter suppression coming from Democrats than others are,” Hasen said. “And while doing list maintenance is a sound election administration practice, there is little doubt that some of the more aggressive voter purge efforts have removed large numbers of eligible voters from voter rolls.”
Rosemary Lytle of the NAACP blasted Lamborn's comments.
“Saying that ‘minorities’ are gullible for believing reports of voter suppression adds insult to the injury of this injustice,” Lytle said. “We have states like Georgia where there is a “use it or lose it” policy that governs the right to vote — as in if you miss voting once, you are dropped from the rolls. We have states like Colorado where robo calls targeting people in Pueblo once said, ‘Don’t forget to vote on Wednesday’ when elections are held on Tuesday. And Doug Lamborn dares to call Black and Brown people ‘gullible’? We are only gullible if we believe the lies of the so-called Congressman who was elected to represent us.”
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