President Barack Obama, kicking off Austin’s 2016 South by Southwest Interactive conference, drew a laugh after saying: “We’re the only advanced democracy in the world that makes it harder for people to vote.”
“No, I hear laughing,” Obama said, “but it’s sad. We take enormous pride in the fact that we are the world’s oldest continuous democracy, and yet we systematically put up barriers and make it as hard as possible for our citizens to vote.”
Is that a fact? Gardner Selby of the PolitiFact Texas fact-checking team has the answer.
Obama wasn’t asked to clarify. But the Democratic leader wasn’t saying his own party erects barriers. Later in his appearance, Obama called it important to study ways of redesigning “our systems” to step up voter turnout and then he said “the folks who are currently governing the good state of Texas aren’t interested in having more people participate.”
Hear how Obama’s claim scored in the player above.