N.J.'s Booker targets voter-ID laws Trump champions

WASHINGTON — While Donald Trump warned of a "rigged" election without voter identification laws, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker said calling fraud at the ballot box a serious problem was "a patent lie."

Booker, the first black to represent New Jersey in the U.S. Senate, said voter-ID laws championed by Trump really are designed to hold down voting by minorities since there are virtually no cases of in-person fraud.

"The problem is he is sort of igniting people to be concerned about a problem that doesn't exist and he's trying to support a lot of these efforts that are going on that are trying to restrict access to voting," Booker (D-N.J.) said in an interview.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 threw out the Voting Rights Act requirement that states and localities with a history of racial discrimination obtain federal approval before changing their voting laws.

Read more: http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/10/njs_booker_and_civil_rights_icon_john_lewis_target.html