In the run up to the general election, courts have fielded several challenges to state voter identification laws, including the policy enacted by North Carolina’s Republican leadership that, as a federal appeals court ruled, suppressed the votes of “African Americans with almost surgical precision.”

A new video from Franchesca Ramsey’s “Decoded” makes plain how voter identification laws—which proponent claim are meant to prevent voter fraud—are both a symptom and a product of structural racism. “Requiring voters to have ID seems like a harmless precaution, until you realize that the majority of people lacking idea are either elderly, poor and aren’t White. And frequently, they’re all three,” Ramsey explains.

Watch the video above.