It requires that anyone who votes must show an approved form of photo ID. “We will continue to uphold the will of Texans and defend the state’s voter ID law”.
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League of Women Voters of Texas President Elaine Wiant said “We applaud the Court’s ruling and urge the District Court to find the quick remedy within days if possible”. “Preventing voter fraud is essential to accurately reflecting the will of Texas voters during elections, and it is unfortunate that this common-sense law, providing protections against fraud, was not upheld in its entirety”, he said. The court is one of the most conservative in the country, with the majority of justices appointed by Republicans.
The Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review said Wednesday there are now 500,051 pending immigration cases in the agency’s courts.
According to Think Progress, a Wisconsin state study found just seven cases of fraud out of 3 million votes cast during the 2004 election, and none of these seven cases were the kind of in-person voter fraud that is supposedly prevented by a voter ID law. That impact is severe: 608,470 registered voters, or 4.5 percent of all registered voters in Texas, lack the necessary ID to vote; Hispanic registered voters are 195 percent more likely than whites to lack ID; and black registered voters are a stunning 305 percent more likely than whites not to hold ID necessary to vote under SB 14. Opponents say it discriminates by requiring forms of ID that are more hard to obtain for low-income, African-American and Latino voters.
In Texas, the US state with the second-largest Hispanic population, 4.2 million Latinos have the right to vote, according to 2010 Census figures. The judges were divided differently on other parts of the ruling.
“The court sent a message that discriminatory photo ID laws are an affront to our democracy and can not stand”, Myrna Pérez, deputy director of the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, said in a statement. Moreover, the court rejected the lower court’s finding that it was a de facto poll tax. “There is no majority opinion, but only a plurality opinion that draws six separate dissenting opinions and a special concurrence”.
The restrictive Texas law is broadly seen as likely to reach the Supreme Court. That court’s decision is expected soon. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the ruling affirmed that the 2011 law – which Texas enforced in three elections – abridged the right to vote based on race or color. With Thursday’s ruling, the 5th Circuit Court has now dictated that a lower court needs to revise this portion of the law and create a solution that opens the elector process to those who were previously barred from doing so.
The New Orleans-based 5th Circuit agreed to rehear the issue after a three-judge panel ruled past year that the law violated the Voting Rights Act.
Rick Hasen, a professor and election law expert at UC Irvine Law School, wrote on Election Law Blog that Texas is unlikely to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court. “A few examples show that the district court relied on concrete evidence regarding the excessive burdens faced by Plaintiffs in making its findings”. The judges told the district court to reconsider the evidence.
“It is imperative that the State government safeguards our elections and ensures the integrity of our democratic process”.
It’s not clear what that court’s remedy might look like.
The Supreme Court, in Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, threw out Congress’s designation of which states required pre-clearance of their laws.
Violations of the Voting Rights Act could also spread to other states such as North Carolina, who have enacted similar voter ID laws also claiming rampant voter fraud.
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After each loss, Texas has appealed.
