Associated
Press–Aug 30, 2012
WASHINGTON
(AP) — A federal court on Thursday rejected a Texas law that would require
voters to present photo IDs to election officials before being allowed to cast
ballots in November.
A
three-judge panel in Washington unanimously ruled that the law imposes
"strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor" and noted that racial
minorities in Texas are more likely to live in poverty.
The
decision involves an increasingly contentious political issue: a push, largely
by Republican-controlled legislatures and governors' offices, to impose strict
identification requirements on voters. Texas' voter ID rules, approved in 2011,
had been widely cheered by conservatives statewide.
Republicans
around the country are aggressively seeking similar requirements in the name of
stamping out voter fraud. Democrats, with support from a number of studies, say
fraud at the polls is largely non-existent and that Republicans are simply
trying to disenfranchise minorities, poor people and college students — all
groups that tend to back Democrats.
Thursday's
ruling almost certainly prevents the Texas law from going into effect for the
November election, but state Attorney General Greg Abbott said he will appeal
to the U.S. Supreme Court "where we are confident we will prevail."
In
the Texas case, the Justice Department called several lawmakers, all of them
Democrats, who said they detected a clear racial motive in the push for the
voter ID law. Lawyers for Texas argued that the state was simply tightening its
laws. Texas called experts who demonstrated that voter ID laws had a minimal
effect on turnout. Republican lawmakers testified that the legislation was the
result of a popular demand for more election protections.
The
ruling comes two days after a separate federal three-judge panel ruled that
Texas' Republican dominated state Legislature did not draw new congressional
and state Senate district maps "without discriminatory purposes."
"In
a matter of two days, the state of Texas has had its dirty laundry aired out
across the national stage," said Democratic state Rep. Trey Martinez
Fisher, chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Conference. "This
deals with the despicable issues of discrimination, voter suppression, these
are things that we're not proud of."
The
judges in the voter ID case are Rosemary Collyer, an appointee of former
President George W. Bush; Robert Wilkins, an appointee of President Barack
Obama; and David Tatel, an appeals court judge appointed by former President
Bill Clinton.
Tatel,
writing for the panel, called the Texas law "the most stringent in the
nation." He said it would impose a heavier burden on voters than a similar
law in Indiana, previously upheld by the Supreme Court, and one in Georgia,
which the Justice Department allowed to take effect without objection.
The
decision comes the same week that South Carolina's strict photo ID law is on
trial in front of another three-judge panel in the same federal courthouse. A
court ruling in the South Carolina case is expected before the November
election.
During
an appearance in Houston in July, Attorney General Eric Holder said Texas'
photo ID requirement amounts to a poll tax, a term that harkens back to the
days after Reconstruction when blacks across the South were stripped of their
right to vote. The attorney general told the NAACP that many Texas voters
seeking to cast ballots would struggle to pay for the documents they might need
to obtain the required photo ID.
Last
December, South Carolina's voter ID requirement became the first such law to be
rejected by the Justice Department in nearly 20 years. Republican presidential
candidate Mitt Romney said the attorney general made a "very serious
error" by blocking it. Romney said the requirement is easy to meet and
will stem voter fraud.
"We
don't want people voting multiple times" and "you can get a photo ID
free from your state. You can get it at the time you register to vote,"
Romney said.
Assistant
Attorney General Thomas Perez, the Justice Department's chief civil rights
enforcer, has said the Texas and South Carolina photo ID laws will hinder many
citizens, particularly minorities, in exercising their right to vote.
Across
much of the South, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is viewed as an overly
intrusive burden on the states — a relic once used by the Justice Department's
civil rights division to remedy discriminatory practices that no longer exist.
Under Section 5 of the act, Texas, South Carolina and all or parts of 14 other
states must obtain clearance from the Justice Department's civil rights
division or a federal court before carrying out changes in elections. The
states are mostly in the South and all have a history of discriminating against
blacks, American Indians, Asian-Americans, Alaskan Natives or Hispanics.
Last
year, new voter ID laws passed in Kansas, Mississippi, Rhode Island and
Wisconsin. In addition to Texas and South Carolina, Alabama and Tennessee
tightened existing voter ID laws to require photo ID. Governors in Minnesota,
Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire and North Carolina vetoed new photo ID laws.
This
year, Pennsylvania enacted its own law and voting-rights groups who filed suit
in an effort to stop it are appealing to the state Supreme Court. A hearing is
scheduled for Sept. 13 in Philadelphia. The Republican administration of Gov.
Tom Corbett says a U.S. Justice Department inquiry into the state's tough new
voter identification law is politically motivated. The department is requesting
the state's voter registration list, plus any database of registered voters who
lack a valid photo ID that the law requires voters to show before their ballots
can be counted.
In
Wisconsin, a county judge ruled in July that the state's new photo ID law
impairs the right to vote. In an appeal, Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van
Hollen, a Republican, is arguing that the ID law doesn't impose an undue burden
because voters can get free state ID cards.
Election
administrators and academics who monitor the issue said in-person fraud is rare
because someone would have to impersonate a registered voter and risk arrest. A
report by the Brennan Center for Justice determined that new voting
restrictions could suppress the votes of more than 5 million young, minority,
low-income and disabled voters.
Associated
Press writers Mark Sherman in Washington and Will Weissert in Austin, Texas,
contributed to this report.
