Under the decision, a system must be worked out before the November 8 election for voters without a driver’s license or one of the other approved IDs to address the discriminatory effect of the requirement on minority voters, the U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans said. This portion of the law was meant to keep African American and Latino voters-who might not possess the USA passports, US citizenship certificates, military IDs, drivers licenses, or concealed handgun carry permits that qualified as approved identification-from participating in the electoral process. For those who can obtain or already have the kind of IDs that the law requires, they must produce them in order to vote, the main opinion stressed.
Advertisement
The ruling was a striking election-year victory for the administration of President Barack Obama, which took the unusual step of bringing the U.S. Justice Department into Texas to fight the case. Wednesday’s ruling did not immediately halt the voter ID law, which has been in effect since 2013. The law was created in the name of preventing voter fraud.
Texas lawmakers in 2011 passed the controversial S.B.
At the heart of numerous challenges – which include issues such as voter ID, early vote cutbacks and same-day registration – is a raging battle between Republicans who say they hope to fight voter fraud and improve public confidence in the election process and Democrats who say the true aim of several of the laws and procedures is to create a substantial burden on the right to vote, particularly for minority voters. Another was unable to obtain ID “because he was unable to get his Louisiana birth certificate for the hefty $81 fee online”.
“However, recent court actions to water down these laws will only invite more chicanery in the least”. Others target rules for registering, early voting and provisional voting, such as the wide-ranging North Carolina law that caused confusion and long lines in March’s primary. “Today, the most conservative court in the country agreed with what we’ve said”. But the court now is split 4 to 4 on ideological grounds, and it would require the vote of five to overturn the circuit court decision. Two other judges backed most of the decision. Dissenting judges wrote that the “en banc court is gravely fractured and without a consensus”. As the majority explained, “Intentions to achieve partisan gain and to racially discriminate are not mutually exclusive”. But the Fifth Circuit’s ruling tilts the odds of success before the shorthanded court against the state: A 4-4 split among the justices would uphold the lower court’s decision in favor of the plaintiffs.
“I would project that the district court will be able to work with the state of Texas, and be able to fashion some sort of acceptable voter ID law”.
More than 600,000 Texas voters, or 4.5 percent of all registered voters in Texas, lacked a suitable ID under the law signed by then-Governor Rick Perry, a lower court found in 2014, according to AP.
The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals instructs a lower court to make changes that fix the “discriminatory effect” of the 2011 law before the November election.
A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit reviewing that decision put aside the district judge’s ruling that the law was enacted by the Texas legislature with a discriminatory goal, which would have required striking down the law.
The challengers conceivably could try to get the Supreme Court to review what the Circuit Court did in overturning Judge Gonzales Ramos on discriminatory intent, but also could await her further ruling and any remedies she imposed, if dissatisfied at that point. Though some evidence “could support” that conclusion, the ruling said, the overall findings were “infirm”. But with only eight justices now sitting on the bench, it is improbable that the measure would be upheld.
On Wednesday, Abbott cheered that finding, but lamented the rest of the ruling. The state and other supporters say the law prevents fraud, while opponents say there are few cases of voter fraud.
It’s not clear what that court’s remedy might look like. Experts called it unlikely that the court would throw out the law completely.
“Texas Republicans’ discriminatory voter ID law has held some 700,000 Texans away from their right to vote for many elections now”, Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa said in a prepared statement.
Advertisement
A Texas delegate is seen on the arena floor during the second day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S., July 19, 2016.
