The group behind this well-coordinated effort was the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), founded back in the 1970s by a man who once declared that he didn’t want “everybody to vote.” In 2009, ALEC began to draft model voter ID legislation. With the GOP in control of more than half the nation’s state governments after the 2010 midterm elections, these bills arose like dragon’s teeth out of the soil of racism and disenfranchisement—out of a Republican vision of democracy that views most citizens as unworthy.
