One of the fundamental beliefs of the lest is that republicans are racist so anything a republican does is because they are racist. They really have nothing to base this belief on but it is core to their world view actual evidence isn't needed, it is simply considered one of the unarguable truths of the universe and is faith based belief system.

Not a single republican I know is against voter ID and not even the ones who are openly racist use race as an argument for supporting it. Now many do believe that illegal aliens are voting and there is nothing to support that argument but wanting to prevent non citizens from voting is not racist even if some percentage of the people who feel that way are racist.

To understand this you really have to understand how the white guilt in America works. There are many more poor whites than there are poor blacks but any attempt to help the poor that treats the poor equally instead of favoring minorities is racist. Gerrymandering to give minorities a larger voice than their numbers warrant is considered not only OK but fair while gerrymandering that doesn't do that is considered racist. It is hardly surprising that this is a point of view pushed exclusively by the party monitories vote for in overwhelming numbers which leads to their deep felt and highly hypocritical believe that democrats can gerrymander but republicans can't because race cards trump reason.

The number of people who are affected by these laws is tiny but it red meat for the white male haters on the left and the paranoid on the right. All politics no substance.