GOP Official Resigns After Saying Purpose Of Voter ID Is To Suppress Votes Of Democrats, ‘Lazy Blacks’

BY IAN MILLHISER/Think Progress

Until Thursday, Don Yelton was a precinct chair in the Buncombe County, North Carolina Republican Party. That ended after a Daily Show interview riddled with racism and candid admissions about the purpose of a voter suppression bill enacted by Republican lawmakers in his state. Over the course of the interview Yelton admitted that he supports requiring voters to show ID, in addition to the other, many voter suppression provisions included in the North Carolina law, because “the law is going to kick the Democrats in the butt.” He also denied that the law is racist during the course of an interview where he both used a particular racial slur that begins with the letter “n” and claimed that he is not racist because he “one my best friends is black.” Watch it:

Yelton also offered several other reasons why he supports the voter suppression law. Among them, “[i]f it hurts a bunch of college kids that’s too lazy to get up off their bohunkus [sic] and get a photo ID, so be it,” and “if it hurts a bunch of lazy blacks that wants the government to give them everything, so be it.”

In the wake of Yelton’s confession that a Republican voter suppression law will suppress Democratic votes, the Buncombe County Republican Party asked him to resign his position within the party, and the country GOP chair says Yelton did so. The party also claims that Yelton was “recently reprimanded and removed from his position as a precinct chair in Buncombe County for a period of time in 2012 through 2013,” though he was reelected at a very sparsely attended party convention.