The state of Texas, where the most delegates are at stake on Tuesday for candidates in both parties, has the most stringent voter-identification law in the nation, according to several election experts, and one that could cut deeply into the turnout of minority voters and young people, an issue for the Democratic contenders, Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who are courting those groups of voters.
A three-judge Federal panel unanimously ruled in August 2012 that Texas had failed to show the law wouldn’t harm minority voters. The panel said the burden of obtaining a state voter ID certificate would weigh disproportionately on minorities living in poverty, with many having to travel as much as 200 to 250 miles round trip. “A law that forces poorer citizens to choose between their wages and their franchise unquestionably denies or abridges their right to vote,” wrote David S. Tatel, a Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The next year, the Supreme Court made a landmark ruling on the Voting Rights Act that in essence took away the power of the Justice Department to challenge potentially unfair voting laws before they are enacted.
The same day as the Supreme Court decision, then Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) said the state would immediately enact its voter-ID law.
The legal wrangling continues. The Justice Department is awaiting a decision about whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, will hear the Texas voter-ID case en banc. In the meantime, a Federal court in Texas found that 608,470 registered voters don’t have the voter IDs that the state now requires for voting. For example, residents can vote with their concealed-carry handgun licenses but not their state-issued student university IDs.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
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