Texas: Voters Take Hit While Judges Ponder Election Laws | The Texas Tribune

The evidence is piling up: If the law allows Texas and other states to discriminate, they will discriminate. Photo voter ID laws, which require voters to offer photographic proof that they are who they say they are, have been flopping in federal courts across the country. The Texas law took a blow from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and was sent back to the trial court to put something better in place in time for the November elections. The court said the Texas law had a racially discriminatory effect. Importantly, it asked the trial court to decide whether that had been the state’s intent. Parts of Wisconsin’s voter ID law were knocked down by a federal judge who said the state was disenfranchising voters because of its “preoccupation with mostly phantom election fraud.” The state is appealing that decision.

Texas: What’s the Fix for Texas’ Voter ID Law? “Time is short” to implement a replacement | The Austin Chronicle

Voter ID in Texas violates the Voting Rights Act, and the state must develop new rules before the November election. That was the definitive statement in a majority opinion, nine to six, issued by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals last week. But don’t put your driver’s license away quite yet. While the court has ruled that the current state rules are in the wrong, no one knows what the replacement rules will look like. Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir said, “We don’t know very much. The takeaway is that we don’t know what to do.” The core issue was the strict photo ID requirements passed in 2011’s Senate Bill 14, which have been facing legal challenges for half a decade. In 2012, the Justice Department blocked implementation of the rules, and then the state lost its first major defense in 2014, when U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos found that the law did indeed suppress minority voters. The majority opinion of the 5th Circuit’s 15-member appeals bench upheld the core ruling of the lower court, and instructed it to create interim rules in time for the November 8 general election.

Texas: State Adjusts Rules for Special Election After Federal Court Rejects Voter ID Law | KUT

Last week, a federal appeals court ruled Texas’ voter ID law makes it harder for minorities to vote. The state was told it could no longer enforce the law as is. Early voting in the first election since that ruling is now underway, so that special election in Bexar County is following a new set of rules. Voters started heading to the polls yesterday in a special election for House District 120, the race to replace state Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon, who retired this year, and the timing of the voter ID ruling had lawyers scrambling. “We were informed of the election I think on Friday morning. And we finished our negotiations at two o’clock in the morning Saturday morning,” said Ezra Rosenberg with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and a member of the legal team that represented a group of Texas voters fighting the state’s law.

Texas: Judge in Texas voter ID case agrees to allow affidavits at polls to cast ballots in San Antonio runoff | San Antonio Express-News

Texas’ strict voter ID law will be weakened to allow voters lacking required photo identification to cast ballots in a San Antonio special election by signing an affidavit, a federal judge ordered. U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos in Corpus Christi has agreed to an affidavit option for voters facing a “reasonable impediment” to obtaining one of seven photo IDs accepted under state law. Ramos’ order is tailored specifically to the runoff election for the House District 120 seat vacated by former state Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon, but it marks the first time the state’s voter ID law will be implemented in a watered-down manner. The law has been used since 2013.

Texas: Appeals court calls Texas voter ID law discriminatory, orders changes | Dallas Morning News

Texas’ voter identification law violates federal laws prohibiting electoral discrimination and must be amended before the November election, an appeals court ruled Wednesday. The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the heart of the 2011 state law, widely viewed as one of the nation’s strictest requirements, ruling that it violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The ruling does not nullify the entirety of the law, so voters will still need to show identification at the polls in November. But a lower court will need to create some form of interim relief until it can develop a more comprehensive solution for those who face obstacles to obtaining an ID. “The record shows that drafters and proponents of SB 14 were aware of the likely disproportionate effect of the law on minorities, and that they nonetheless passed the bill without adopting a number of proposed ameliorative measures that might have lessened this impact,” Judge Catharina Haynes wrote in the ruling.

Texas: Fixing Voter ID Law Ruled to Be Discriminatory Will Be Tricky Task | The New York Times

Ever since Texas’ strict voter identification law was passed in 2011, Democratic lawmakers and minority groups had focused on how to get it struck down. This week, after a federal appeals court ruled that the law discriminated against minorities, there is a new, equally vexing question: how to fix it. The appellate court’s decision kept the law in place but instructed a lower court judge to come up with procedures to minimize the law’s effect on those who do not have an approved form of government-issued photo ID or who face hurdles in easily obtaining one, many of whom are black or Hispanic. North Carolina, South Carolina and other states that have passed voter ID requirements have had similar court battles over how, and whether, to loosen their rules to accommodate poor and minority voters. One option is allowing voter-registration cards to be used as ID. Those cards are mailed to voters and do not have a photograph, and might be more readily available to an impoverished voter than a government-issued photo ID. Another option is expanding the list of acceptable IDs to include student IDs or government-employee IDs. And yet another possible solution involves having the state exempt the poor from having to show a photo ID to vote, an exception modeled on Indiana’s voter ID law.

Texas: Voter ID Ruling Offers Stinging Rebuke to Law’s Backers | NBC

Wednesday’s ruling by a federal appeals court against Texas’s voter ID law looks likely to lower a massive barrier to voting that had threatened to disenfranchise large numbers of the state’s minority voters. The ruling also offers a stinging rebuke to state lawmakers and officials who enacted and defended the law. And its cogent dismantling of many of the key claims advanced by backers of strict ID laws — all the more remarkable coming from a conservative-leaning court — could have implications beyond the Lone Star State. Still, exactly what happens next — and what it all means for voters this November — remains somewhat up in the air.

Texas: Judge issues blueprint for fixes in Texas’ voter ID law | Houston Chronicle

Texas will have to engage in a “meaningful” education campaign about its beleaguered voter ID law and some people lacking required photo identification may be allowed to once again use voter registration cards to cast ballots in the November election, a federal judge said Thursday. In a two-page order, U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos in Corpus Christi provided the first blueprint for potential fixes for Texas’ voter ID measure – one day after a federal appeals court said the law violates federal protections against discrimination at the ballot box. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, largely considered one of the most conservative courts in the country, dealt Texas Republicans a big hit in ruling that the law violates a key section of the Voting Rights Act. The court sent the case back to Ramos, who ruled last year the law flouts federal protections for blacks and Hispanics. She was ordered to make changes before the presidential election to ensure it no longer unfairly harms poor and minority Texas residents.

Texas: Appeals court says Texas voter-ID law discriminates against minorities | The Washington Post

A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Texas’s strict voter-ID law discriminates against minority voters, and it ordered a lower court to come up with a fix for the law in time for the November elections. The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, one of the most conservative in the country, declined to strike down the law completely but said provisions must be made to allow those who lack the specific ID the law requires to be able to cast a vote. Nine of the 15 appellate judges who heard the case generally upheld a district court’s finding that 600,000 people, disproportionately minorities, lack the specific kind of identification required — a driver’s license, military ID, passport or weapons permit, among them — and that it would be difficult for many to secure it. African American, Hispanic and poor voters were most likely to be affected, the court found. “It would be untenable to permit a law with a discriminatory effect to remain in operation” for the coming election, wrote U.S. Circuit Judge Catharina Haynes for the majority, made of up five judges nominated by Democratic presidents and four nominated by Republicans.

Texas: Deadline Approaches for Texas Voter ID Law, But It Likely Won’t End the Legal Battle | KUT

The deadline for a federal appeals court to rule on the state’s controversial voter ID law is fast approaching. The U.S. Supreme Court gave the court until July 20 to make a decision about whether the law violates federal civil rights law. But, no matter what happens, this likely isn’t the end of this legal battle. First of all, the fact that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals even has a deadline on this is the first indicator that this case is pretty unique. “Rarely does a circuit court get told by the Supreme Court to decide something by a particular date,” says Joseph Fishkin, a professor at UT Austin’s School of Law. He says there’s a lot that’s novel about this case.

Texas: State’s Tab Defending Voter ID $3.5 Million So Far | The Texas Tribune

More than five years after Republicans fast-tracked legislation limiting the forms of ID accepted to vote in Texas elections, state taxpayers are still picking up the tab for defending the nation’s strictest voter identification law in court. The state has spent more than $3.5 million defending the law in the five separate lawsuits it has spawned, records obtained from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office show. Whether that spending is a “shameful waste” or the cost of fending off the federal government depends on whom you ask. Paxton’s legal team is battling the U.S. Department of Justice, minority groups and other opponents who argue — thus far successfully — that Senate Bill 14, passed in 2011, discriminates against minorities, elderly and poor Texans most likely to lack acceptable government-issued IDs.

Texas: Lawsuit claims Hidalgo County voting machines ‘either faulty or tampered with’ | KGBT

Voting machines in western Hidalgo County were “either faulty or tampered with” to rig the Democratic Party primary runoff election, according to a lawsuit filed Monday. Bail bondsman Arnaldo Corpus — who challenged Justice of the Peace Precinct 3 Place 2 Marcos Ochoa in the primary — filed the lawsuit. Ochoa won 54 percent of 6,625 ballots cast, defeating Corpus, according to results published by the Hidalgo County Elections Department. Corpus, though, claims the Elections Department count isn’t correct.

Texas: Voter ID battle explained: hearing in appeals court just the latest battle | Houston Chronicle

The Texas Attorney General was in federal court Tuesday to defend the state’s controversial voter ID law, which courts have twice tried to strike down. Both times it has persisted. So what is all this hullaballoo about, and why does Texas think it needs to fight so hard to required voters to show state approved ID at the polls? According to Gov. Greg Abbott in March, it’s because “the fact is, voter fraud is rampant” in Texas. But that doesn’t appear to be true all. PolitiFact rated Abbott’s claim “pants on fire,” finding just four documented cases of in-person voter fraud between 2000 and 2014, during which time 72 million ballots were cast in Texas. He and other proponents of the law argue that the burden it requires–showing one of seven forms of state-approved documents in order to vote–should be easily met by any Texan.

Texas: State defends its voter ID law before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals | The Star-Telegram

A top lawyer for Texas fiercely defended the state’s strictest-in-the-nation voter identification law Tuesday in a high-profile case that could ultimately determine at what point states that assert that they are protecting the integrity of elections cross over into disenfranchisement. Standing before all 15 judges of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller argued that judges were wrong to conclude in two previous rulings that the Texas Legislature discriminated against minority and low-income voters in passing a 2011 law that stipulates which types of photo identification election officials can and cannot accept at the polls. If those rulings are left as written, “all voting laws could be in jeopardy,” Keller said before a packed courtroom that included his boss, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Lawyers representing the Justice Department, minority groups and other plaintiffs disagreed, asking the judges to affirm what a lower court — and a three-judge panel in this same courthouse — previously concluded: that Senate Bill 14 has a “discriminatory effect” on Hispanic, African-American and other would-be voters in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Only a handful of judges asked questions at length Tuesday, making it difficult to judge where the majority stands. But the 5th Circuit is considered among the nation’s most conservative, with 10 of its judges having been appointed by Republican presidents.

Texas: Five Years Later, Voter ID Suit Still Moving Forward | The Texas Tribune

Texas’ five-year-old voter identification law — among the nation’s strictest — will face a fresh round of probing Tuesday in a long-winding lawsuit that may ultimately end up at the U.S. Supreme Court. The 15-judge U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans will hear arguments from both Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller and attorneys for opponents of the law, which include minority and voting rights groups. The case asks whether the state discriminated against Hispanics, African-Americans and low-income Texans in passing the law, which stipulates which types of photo identification election officials can and cannot accept at the polls.

Texas: Federal court questions whether Texas voter-ID law can offer accommodations | The Washington Post

With a U.S. Supreme Court deadline looming, judges on a federal appeals court here Tuesday questioned whether accommodations could be made to protect minority voters and save Texas’s strictest-in-the-nation voter-ID law. Among the 15 judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit who heard oral arguments Tuesday morning, there did not seem to be much support for striking down the law or blocking its use in November’s presidential election. But several questioned why Texas did not have more fallback provisions — as other states do — for voters who lack the kinds of identification that the state requires. Three other courts have said the Texas law discriminates against African American, Hispanic and poor voters, who are less likely to have the specified ID documents.

Texas: US Appeals Court Revisits Texas Voter ID Law | Associated Press

A federal appeals court is set to take a second look at a strict Texas voter ID law that was found to be unconstitutional last year. Texas’ law requires residents to show one of seven forms of approved identification. The state and other supporters say it prevents fraud. Opponents, including the U.S. Justice Department, say it discriminates by requiring forms of ID that are more difficult to obtain for low-income, African-American and Latino voters. Arguments before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals are set for Tuesday morning. The full court agreed to rehear the issue after a three-judge panel ruled last year that the law violates the Voting Rights Act. Lawyers for Texas argue that the state makes free IDs easy to obtain, that any inconveniences or costs involved in getting one do not substantially burden the right to vote, and that the Justice Department and other plaintiffs have failed to prove that the law has resulted in denying anyone the right to vote.

Texas: Why the Fifth Circuit’s Decision This Week Could Decide the Fate of Texas’ Voter ID Law | KUT

On Tuesday a federal appeals court will take a second look at Texas’ controversial voter ID law. It’s one of the biggest voting rights battles ahead of this year’s presidential election, and a ruling from this court could be a final say on whether the state’s law is in violation of the Voting Rights Act. This will be the second time the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals hears the case Veasey v. Abbott. This time, all 15 active judges on the court will weigh in. The case was brought by a coalition of Texas voters and civil rights groups who say a state law requiring photo ID at the polls is unconstitutional. “It’s the first major case that has gone up on appeal to challenge a voter ID law based on Section Two of the Voting Rights Act,” says UT law Professor Joseph Fishkin.“So, that’s a different kind of claim, and it’s a claim that’s specifically about whether the law hurts racial minorities to elect their candidates of choice.”

Texas: Voter ID lawsuit abruptly withdrawn in state court | Austin American-Statesman

A lawsuit challenging Texas’ voter ID law, filed by a judge on the state’s highest criminal court, was abruptly withdrawn Wednesday, only one day after a Dallas appeals court heard oral arguments on whether the lawsuit should be allowed to continue. Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Larry Meyers, the only Democrat in statewide office after switching parties in 2013, was seeking to have the voter ID law thrown out, arguing that it exceeded the power granted to the Legislature by the Texas Constitution.

Texas: Got ID?: A Texas law could disenfranchise 600,000 voters | The Economist

Fig leaves are often draped over controversial laws coming out of the Republican-dominated legislature in Texas. But when a judge takes a closer look, the reality of the legislation tends to be laid bare fairly quickly. In March, Texas’s solicitor general struggled, during a hearing at the Supreme Court, to explain how onerous regulations that have closed three-quarters of the state’s abortion clinics are actually a boon to women’s reproductive health. And despite repeated losses in federal courts, the Lone Star state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, stands resolutely by a 2011 voter-identification law that could keep 600,000 minority and young Texans away from the polls in November. The law, Mr Paxton says, is necessary to protect the integrity of elections. On May 2nd, the Supreme Court signalled it may step in to evaluate that counterintuitive proposition if a lower court does not resolve the matter by July 20th.

Texas: Analysis: A Texas Judge Takes Voter ID to Court | The Texas Tribune

The only Democrat in elected statewide office in Texas is suing to upend the state’s photo voter ID law, saying it’s an unconstitutional obstacle to a legal activity: voting. The rogue in question is Larry Meyers, who was elected to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals as a Republican in 1992 and re-elected in 1998, 2004 and 2010. At the end of 2013, he changed parties, irritated with the direction of his party and wanting to make a statement on his way out of office — if that’s where the switch takes him. Meyers says he left the Republican Party “after the Tea Party takeover” and says the infighting within the GOP has only confirmed his decision. He refers to his former political home as “the Donner Party,” after an infamous case of cannibalism among settlers in the 1840s. “They’re eating each other up,” he says.

Texas: Justices Leave Texas Voter ID Law Intact, With a Warning | The New York Times

The Supreme Court on Friday left in place a strict voter identification law in Texas, while leaving open the possibility that it would intercede if the appeals court considering a challenge to the law did not act promptly. “The court recognizes the time constraints the parties confront in light of the scheduled elections in November 2016,” the Supreme Court’s brief, unsigned order said, adding that “an aggrieved party may seek interim relief from this court by filing an appropriate application” if the appeals court did not act by July 20. The Texas law, enacted in 2011, requires voters seeking to cast their ballots at the polls to present photo identification like a Texas driver’s or gun license, a military ID or a passport. In a 2014 dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the law “replaced the previously existing voter identification requirements with the strictest regime in the country.” Federal courts have repeatedly ruled that the law is racially discriminatory.

Texas: Supreme Court won’t block Texas photo ID law — yet | USA Today

The Supreme Court refused Friday to block Texas’ photo ID law, the strictest in the nation, from remaining in effect for now, but it left open the possibility of doing so this summer if a lower court challenge remains unresolved. Civil rights groups who say the law discriminates against black and Hispanic voters had argued that it should be blocked because it was struck down by a federal court in 2014, and no higher court has yet to overturn that ruling. It was the second time the high court had refused to block the photo ID law. In October 2014, the justices allowed Texas to enforce it in its pending November elections. That order was not signed, but Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg filed a six-page dissent, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Texas: U.S. Supreme Court Lets Texas Voter ID Law Stand During Appeal | Wall Street Journal

The Supreme Court on Friday allowed Texas to continue to enforce a law requiring voters to show identification at the polls, a setback for civil rights challengers who said the law could make it difficult for a sizable number of minorities to cast a ballot in November. The court, in a brief written order, declined to disturb a lower-court action that has allowed Texas to use its voter-ID law while litigation over the measure continues, including during its recent primary election in March. The court’s order, which didn’t note any dissents, said the parties could renew their request if lower courts haven’t acted by late July. An appeals court is slated to hear arguments in the case in late May.

Texas: Fifteen GOP states back Texas voter ID law in legal brief | San Antonio Express-News

Fifteen Republican-controlled states are wading into the contentious court fight over Texas’ voter ID law, arguing in a legal brief that similar laws around the country have already been upheld by the courts. A three-judge panel at the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that Texas’ law requiring voters to show picture identification at the polls violated parts of the federal Voting Rights Act. However, the court’s full bench has agreed to reconsider the case at a May 24 hearing. Ahead of oral arguments next month, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller is leading a coalition of GOP states supporting Texas’ controversial measure. In a recent court filing with, Zoeller’s office argues that a ruling against Texas’ measure could create “uncertainty for States attempting to enforce or enact voter ID laws.” “This, in turn, would leave State voter ID laws in a constant state of flux,” Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher writes in an amicus brief.

Texas: Photo ID law stands despite challenges since Supreme Court ruling weakened Voting Rights Act | Los Angeles Times

Hours after the Supreme Court in 2013 struck down a core part of the Voting Rights Act, Texas put into effect a law that threatened to disenfranchise more than 600,000 registered voters. The Justice Department had blocked the law two years earlier as discriminatory, and a three-judge panel in Washington agreed that it put “unforgiving burdens on the poor.” Texans who lacked driver’s licenses had to take certified copies of their birth certificates to motor-vehicle offices to obtain new photo ID cards, sometimes a trip of more than 100 miles. Even though the high court’s ruling ended the department’s ability to prevent the law from taking effect, a federal district court judge in 2014 struck it down for discriminating against minorities. Last year, a U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals panel upheld that decision in a 3-0 opinion, written by a judge appointed by President George W. Bush. Yet the Texas law still stands.

Texas: State defends its voter photo ID law | SCOTUSblog

Arguing that its five-year-old law requiring voters to have a photo ID before they may cast a ballot will not deny anyone in Texas the right to vote, state officials urged the Supreme Court on Monday afternoon to allow the law to remain in effect while a federal appeals court conducts a new review of it. If federal voting rights law would treat the requirement as illegal, the federal law would be unconstitutional under the Fifteenth Amendment, the state contended. The Court is considering a plea by a group of voters and officeholders in Texas (Veasey v. Abbott, 15A999) to block further enforcement of the requirement, and to do so in time to keep it from affecting voting in this year’s general election in November, conceding that it is now too late to stop it for the state’s May 24 run-off election. Their request was filed with Justice Clarence Thomas; he has the option of acting alone or sharing it with his colleagues.

Texas: District Fight May Persist in Texas After Supreme Court Ruling | The New York Times

With a long-running legal struggle raging over one of the nation’s strictest voter identification laws, Texas was already a prime battleground in a war between conservatives and liberals over voting rights. And on Monday, experts here and elsewhere say, the Supreme Court may have opened a second front. The court said unanimously that the state could take into account all of its 27 million residents when it carves its territory into voting districts for the State Senate, regardless of whether they can vote in elections. It was a setback for conservatives who want to limit that redistricting population to eligible voters, and a resounding affirmation of the one-person-one-vote principle that has governed most redistricting nationwide for decades. But it was probably not the final word because the court was silent on whether any other population formula could be used to draw new voting districts. And within hours, advocates on both sides of the issue indicated that Texas or another conservative-dominated state was bound to do just that, probably after the 2020 census triggers a new round of redistricting nationwide.

Texas: Civil rights groups ask U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in voter ID lawsuit | San Antonio Express-News

Civil rights groups challenging Texas’ voter identification law are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block the measure from being used during the 2016 general election. It’s the latest in a years-long court fight involving the state’s voter ID law, which is considered among the strictest in the country. The groups are arguing that time is running out to tweak or prevent the law from being used before the November elections. A Corpus Christi federal judge ruled in October 2014 the law was unconstitutional, in part, because it had a discriminatory effect that illegally hindered minorities from casting ballots. A three-judge panel from the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with that ruling last year and ordered the law to be fixed. But the Fifth Circuit has allowed the law to stay in effect without change following both rulings, and now the full appeals court has now agreed to rehear the case. Oral arguments are set for May 24.

Texas: Voter Suppression Coming Back To Texas? State’s Halted Voter ID Law Gets Appeals Court Hearing in May | International Business Times

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans scheduled a late May showdown for proponents and opponents of a Texas voter ID law, which the federal appellate court previously halted after finding it discriminatory to black and Latino voters in the state. Earlier this month, the court’s 15 judges agreed to reconsider the constitutionality of the law, raising alarm among voting rights advocates who fear the law could be reauthorized ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The May 24 hearing date was set Tuesday, the Austin American-Statesman reported. The Texas voter ID law, passed by lawmakers in 2011, requires the state’s 14.6 million registered voters to show specific forms of picture identification at the polling station. Poor, elderly, racial minority voters and Democrats are least likely to have the forms of ID required at polling station, voting rights advocates have said.