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 "Early next year, we're going to put forward what we know will be
a bipartisan effort or a bipartisan proposal to encourage people to
vote," he said in an interview on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris
Matthews."
"You can't say you take pride in American democracy, American
constitutionalism, American exceptionalism, and then you're doing
everything you can to make it harder for people to vote as opposed
to easier for people to vote."
In his State of the Union address in February, the president vowed
to smooth the voting process after stories of long lines and other
obstacles during the 2012 election. He assigned the top attorney to
his 2012 re-election campaign, Bob Bauer, and his counterpart from
the rival Republican Mitt Romney's campaign, Ben Ginsberg, to lead a
group to recommend how to reduce waiting times at polling sites.
More controversial are state laws requiring voters to present
identification in order to cast their ballots. Such laws, passed by
some three dozen states, have become a political and racial
flashpoint — Democrats usually oppose the measures while Republicans
support them.
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Obama said his administration would take legal action if it has
evidence that such laws, referred to as voter ID laws, violate
citizens' voting rights.
"If we have evidence that you have mechanisms that are specifically
designed to discriminate against certain groups of voters, then the
Justice Department will come down on them and file suit," he said.
(Reporting by Mark Felsenthal; editing by Mohammad Zargham)
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