Voting Groups Work to Educate Public Following Voter ID Ruling

Texas has agreed to weaken its voter ID law for November’s elections, after a federal court ruled the law had a discriminatory effect.

But as soon as the covered state and local governments were freed from the pre-clearance mandate, Republican legislatures in some 17 states adopted new laws that civil rights groups said were targeted at suppressing the minority vote.

In the past, voters could cast provisional ballots, but if they didn’t come up with a specific form of ID, their votes would not count.

A sign tells voters of voter ID requirements before participating in the primary election at Sherrod Elementary school in Arlington, Texas, Tuesday, March 1, 2016.

Texas has agreed to spend at least $2.5 million for a public outreach campaign to educate voters about the new procedures by no later than August 15.

Under the deal, which still needs to be approved by a federal judge, a voter whose name appears on the voting roll but is without the appropriate ID could vote after showing an item such as a valid voter registration card or a government document that displays the voter’s name and address. But the President Barack Obama’s administration in recent years joined the fight on a new breed of voter ID laws passed in Republican-controlled statehouses, sending the U.S. Justice Department to join lawsuits in Texas and North Carolina.

Texas’s voter ID law had drawn criticism for disenfranchising up to 600,000 registered voters who lacked acceptable photo identification, such as drivers’ licenses, military IDs or concealed handgun permits.

The proposed deal also builds in safeguards to prevent poll workers and election officials from dissuading someone lacking the proper identification from casting a ballot.

Texas is one of four states where courts have sided with challengers to voter photo ID laws in the past two weeks, including rulings to soften Wisconsin’s voter ID law and block voter ID laws in North Carolina and North Dakota.

The DOJ’s election law oversight duties were diminished with the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court ruling that struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, King said. Trump suggested at a rally Monday that he fears the general election “is going to be rigged” without offering any immediate evidence.

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The compromise far from ends the legal battle over the Texas voter ID law.