Fox & Friends denies Wisconsin's history of voter suppression

Written by Julie Alderman

Published

Fox & Friends Saturday, along with Wisconsin’s Republican Gov. Scott Walker, whitewashed the state’s history of voter suppression in the 2016 election, despite the fact that estimates show thousands of voters were unable to vote due to the state’s strict voter ID laws. Walker called the notion that the state’s law suppressed votes “ridiculous” while co-host Pete Hegseth asked, “Where do they come up with this idea that the vote was suppressed?” By one estimate, according to the Associated Press, “300,000 eligible voters in the state lacked valid photo IDs heading into the election.” Additionally, a study found that Wisconsin's law had “a disproportionate impact on African-American and Democratic-leaning voters.”

Walker also deflected from allegations of voter suppression by noting that Wisconsin had the “the second largest turnout of any state in the nation,’ during the primary. This canard was repeated by right-wing media, even though experts say that such claims are “at best unscientific, at worst just plain wrong.” From the May 27 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends Saturday:

ABBY HUNTSMAN (CO-HOST): [Is] voter suppression the reason why Hillary Clinton lost specifically in your home state?

SCOTT WALKER: Well, it’s convenient that she says that now and didn’t say anything about it last spring when she lost the Wisconsin primary to Bernie Sanders on the Democrat side. That’s because in the primary, both Republican and Democrat primaries, we had the second largest turnout of any state in the nation, second only to New Hampshire where, obviously they’ve got a pretty big tradition of being first in the nation in terms of primary. Wisconsin was second behind them in terms of turnout. The biggest turnout we’ve had since the 1970’s and that’s because people were excited about those campaigns, both on the left and on the right. Obviously part of the reason she failed in Wisconsin in the fall was because people weren’t excited about her campaign.

PETE HEGSETH (CO-HOST): Well, of course. But are they blaming [Clinton’s loss] on voter ID [laws]? Where do they come up with this idea that the vote was suppressed?

WALKER: Well, it’s just ridiculous. The idea that everywhere else in society, almost in anything we do in life today we have to show some sort of photo ID. We do it in Wisconsin. We provide it for free upon request. There’s no way that people can’t get access to a voter ID here in the state of Wisconsin. Again, it wasn’t a problem in the spring when we had record turnout.

HUNTSMAN: Right.

WALKER: That’s because people on both the Republican and Democrat side were excited. Apparently they weren’t excited about Hillary Clinton’s campaign in the fall and that’s the reasons she didn’t win.