In a ruling rife with dissent, one of the country’s most conservative federal appeals courts ruled Wednesday that Texas’ voter identification law had the effect of discriminating against minority voters in Texas.
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For North Dakotans it means our voter ID law – which is very similar to the one in Texas – may be in jeopardy too.
The lower court will be allowed to leave the law in place for the current election so as to avoid voter confusion “despite unresolved issues related to disenfranchisement”.
The law was first passed by then-Gov. After the U.S. Justice Department and voting rights groups sued under a different plank of the VRA, Judge Ramos struck the law down, finding that it intentionally discriminated against non-whites.
Last year, Cynthia Meyer, a spokeswoman for the Texas attorney general’s office, defended the law in an email to Fusion. “For everyone who believes in a full and representative democracy, today is a day to celebrate”, Progress Texas Executive Director Ed Espinoza said. The 5th Circuit’s full panel of judges now agrees, joining every other federal court that has reviewed this law. The freedom to vote for 1.2 million eligible Texas citizens who lack the specific forms of identification required by Texas’ strict photo ID law, including 600,000 citizens already registered to vote, was vindicated.
Seventeen states have new voting procedures in place for the November election, more than half of which are being challenged in court.
“The decision affirms our position that Texas’ highly restrictive voter ID law abridges the right to vote on account of race or color and orders appropriate relief before yet another election passes”, the statement read. The court ruled that the law as written is racially discriminatory in its effect, whether that was what the Texas Legislature intended when it passed the law in 2011 or not.
“It is imperative that the State government safeguards our elections and ensures the integrity of our democratic process”, Paxton said in a statement. The Circuit Court conceded that there was a possibility that it could be drawn into the case again after the trial judge rules.
The Texas attorney general’s office said the seven acceptable forms of photo ID were: a Texas driver’s license, free Texas election identification certificate (known as an EIC), Texas personal ID card, Texas license to carry a concealed handgun, USA military ID card, US citizenship certificate and a US passport.
Most cases in the federal appeals courts are heard by three-judge panels.
The Fifth Circuit’s majority opinion, however, reversed the part of the trial court’s ruling that had determined that lawmakers passed SB-14 with a racially discriminatory objective.
Justice Don Willett, who is almost as famous for his tweets as he is for his position on the Supreme Court of Texas, was blunt in his response: Texas loses. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court, with an eye on the upcoming election, gave the 5th Circuit a soft July 20 deadline to make a ruling. The U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Adelman’s ruling allows any voter without a photo ID to cast a ballot so long as they “sign an affidavit attesting their identity”.
The 5th Circuit stopped short of striking down the whole law.
Other Texans had divergent responses to the ruling. However, we can now look forward to a fairer election system, worthy of our great state.
That would be a huge victory for voting rights and a warning to other states not to follow Texas’ lead in making voting harder, especially for more vulnerable members of society.
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Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he was disappointed by the ruling and must now work with opponents for a quick solution in less than four months.
