Texas: State Asks Appeals Court to Uphold Voter Photo ID Law | Associated Press

Supporters and opponents of a Texas law requiring specific forms of photo identification for voters faced close questioning in a federal appeals court Tuesday on whether the law was meant to discriminate against minorities and whether there are ways to remedy it. The U.S. Justice Department and others oppose the law as an unconstitutional burden on minority voters. The state of Texas says the law was aimed at preventing fraud. The state is appealing a federal district judge’s ruling last October that struck down the law. Judge Catharina Haynes, one of three judges hearing the Texas case at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, suggested in questioning that the matter should perhaps be sent back to the district court for further consideration. She noted that the Texas Legislature currently has several bills that that could broaden the number and types of ID voters could use to cast ballots.

Texas: Federal Appeals Court to Scrutinize Voter ID Law | The Texas Tribune

Texas’ voter ID law faces a fresh round of legal scrutiny in New Orleans on Tuesday, the next step in a long-winding case that may be headed for the U.S. Supreme Court. Three judges on the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments from Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller and lawyers for the plaintiffs, including minority groups and the U.S. Department of Justice. The case asks whether Texas intentionally discriminated against Hispanics and African-Americans when it passed what are widely considered the nation’s strictest rules for the identification voters must present at the polls. The dispute stands out in the national debate over recently tightened identification requirements in many Republican-controlled states, and could factor into whether Texas might – once again – need federal approval to enact new election laws.

Texas: Right to vote at stake in Texas voter ID appeal | MSNBC

By any measure, Mario Rubio went to great lengths to vote last fall. Though he was in a rehab center after developing an infection during surgery, Rubio, a 60-year-old resident of Austin, Texas, asked the facility’s director whether a trip to the polls could be arranged. But he had given his wallet with his driver’s license to his brother for safe-keeping when he went to the rehab center, meaning he didn’t have an acceptable photo identification under the state’s strict voter ID law. As a result, after waiting in a van for over an hour and a half, Rubio was forced to cast a provisional ballot, even though he had plenty of other identification. A day later, Rubio was transferred to a different facility. But the papers he’d been given telling him where to send a copy of his ID in order to make his provisional ballot count weren’t transferred with him. That left him unable to validate his provisional ballot within the 6-day time frame provided by the law. Rubio later got a letter telling him his vote was thrown out.

Texas: Four Years Later, Texas Is Still Defending Its Voter ID Law | Huffington Post

A federal appeals court will hear oral arguments on Tuesday in a case that could have national implications for states that require voters to present government-issued forms of photo identification at the polls. The issue at hand — Texas’ contentious photo ID law — is expected to ultimately make its way to the Supreme Court. But first a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the case. There, voting rights advocates will argue that a federal judge’s ruling from October — which called the law an unconstitutional “poll tax,” intentionally discriminatory and an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote — should be upheld. Critics of the law argued that hundreds of thousands of Texans lacked the correct form of identification, but the state’s leadership has insisted that the law is meant to protect against voter fraud and is not an effort to make it more difficult for any demographic to vote.

Texas: Bill could allow voters to use cell phones at polling locations | The Daily Texan

For the next round of elections, voters might be able to cast their ballots with a cell phone in hand. Current state law prohibits voters from having their cell phones within 100 feet of the voting area, but the State House of Representatives on Monday heard and initially passed a bill that would allow voters to use their cell phones in polling stations, with certain limitations. The bill, authored by Rep. Greg Bonnen (R-Friendswood), permits voters to “access information that was downloaded, recorded or created on the phone” before the voter enters his or her polling place.

Texas: Bill to expand email voting for soldiers in hostile zones | The Killeen Daily Herald

A program allowing soldiers in hostile fire zones to vote via email soon may come to Bell County, if a bill can make its way through the Texas Legislature. A pilot version of the program was held last year in Bexar County, which includes Fort Sam Houston and other military bases. The secretary of state reported 365 ballots were sent to soldiers overseas for the November election. Of those ballots, eight soldiers from Bexar County cast ballots in Texas’ general election in 2014. Bexar County Elections Administrator Jacquelyn Callanen said the eight emailed back represent “a huge success.” Now, a bill that expands the program is winding its way through the Texas Senate. The bill would allow the secretary of state’s office, which oversees elections, to extend the program to other counties, including Bell County for Fort Hood and El Paso County, home to Fort Bliss. … But voting via email and through the Internet can be a big red flag for cybersecurity experts.

Texas: 8 Texas soldiers voted via email; program called ‘success’ | KXAN

Usually, a 2 percent response rate is not considered a success, but it is for a Texas pilot program that allows soldiers in combat zones to cast ballots via email. State lawmakers passed a bill in 2013 directing the secretary of state to allow one county in Texas to allow soldiers in hostile fire zones to cast email ballots. Then-Secretary of State John Steen chose Bexar County, home of San Antonio and the 50,000 enlisted military members of Joint Base San Antonio, to be the first for the program.

Texas: Proposed Change to Election of Judges Gets Cool Reception | The Texas Tribune

Legislation that would remove Texas judges from the straight-ticket voting process garnered a mostly cool reception Tuesday at a Texas House committee hearing, as both Democrats and Republicans said that tinkering with the ballot turns off voters. House Bill 25, authored by state Rep. Kenneth Sheets, R-Dallas, would only impact partisan elections in judicial races. Sheets, an attorney, told his fellow House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee members that good judges are being unfairly ousted when a Republican or Democratic wave occurs during a general election. “We’re not eliminating straight-ticketing voting,” Sheets said Tuesday. “We’re just making it so voters would have to manually select, and the thought process is that more people would select the judicial candidate [based] on the individual.”

Texas: Elections committee hears bill to eliminate straight-party voting | Dallas Morning News

Texas is one of only 10 states still doing straight-ticket voting but a North Texas legislator is hoping to change that. At a hearing today, Rep. Ron Simmons (R-Carrollton) told the Elections Committee that doing away with such an option here would lead to a more informed voter and improve turnout in non-partisan ballot measure. “The purpose of this bill is to increase the number of Republican elected officials thought out the state of Texas,” he halfway joked. “However I do believe the added benefit will be a more educated voter.”

Texas: Bill could allow online voter registration | Tyler Morning Telegraph

Registering to vote could soon be as easy as logging onto a website and filling out an online form. The Legislature is currently considering a set of bills that would make Texas the 15th state to allow online registration access, said Smith County Elections Administrator Karen Nelson. Supporters of online voting registration said it would make it more convenient — just as Texas drivers can now renew their licenses online. Opponents said there’s a big risk of voter fraud. Fourteen states already utilize online voter registration, and there are five proposed bills to allow for it in Texas: House Bills 444, 446, 76 and 953 as well as Senate Bill 385. All of the bills are in committee.

Texas: Four Texas legislators push to make student ID acceptable as voter ID | The Daily Texan

Four Texas lawmakers are making voter turnout among college students a priority by proposing bills that would make university-issued ID cards an acceptable form of voter ID. The bills, filed in both the House and Senate by Rep. Terry Canales (D-Edinburg), Rep. Celia Israel (D-Austin), Sen. Carlos Uresti (D-San Antonio) and Sen. Kirk Watson (D-Austin), would allow students to present a university-issued photo ID as a valid form of voter ID. Watson said his bill, if passed, would make voting more convenient for students. “Those in control of the Capitol have created unnecessary burdens for folks who don’t already have an acceptable form of ID to vote,” Watson said in an email to the Texan. “This is an easy way to begin removing those burdens.”

Texas: The state of voting in Texas | MSNBC

This country has a long and complicated history with voting rights. Though universal suffrage was granted in 1920, it took years of organizing to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and finally secure unencumbered access to polling places. Now, nearly five decades later, politicians in Texas have been systematically chipping away at those protections — through voter ID laws, overreaching registration regulations, and other hurdles designed to drive down the number of people who are able to make their voices heard at the ballot box. In fact, Texas is the next great battleground for voters’ rights. Texas’ voter ID law was one of the most publicized voting restrictions of 2014 — in part because of the drama surrounding a last-minute Supreme Court decision to keep the law in effect only days before voting started in the 2014 gubernatorial election. Ruled to be “intentionally discriminatory” and likened to a poll tax by Fifth Circuit Court Judge Nelva Ramos, the law does more than require identification in order to vote: it limits the acceptable forms of voter identification to a select few – a concealed handgun license is acceptable, for instance, while a Social Security card is not. As a result, last November, about 600,000 registered Texas voters – a group that was disproportionately African-American, Latino, young and elderly – were at risk of being kept from the polls by this restrictive law.

Texas: Lawsuit claims Dallas County’s commissioner districts discriminate against white people | Dallas Morning News

A conservative group that lists a Texas lawmaker on its governing board has filed a lawsuit claiming that Dallas County violates the Voting Rights Act by discriminating against white people. The suit filed in federal court Thursday by the Dallas-based Equal Voting Rights Institute argues that whites are a racial minority in the county and have been unable to elect their chosen Republican candidates to the Commissioners Court. It asks a judge to throw out the county’s district map and order a new one before the 2016 elections. “Like something out of the bad old days, a southern electoral body [is playing] naked racial politics, intentionally using its power to minimize a dissenting race’s political sway,” the suit says. Newly elected state Rep. Matt Rinaldi is one of four people on the institute’s oversight board, according to the group’s website.

Texas: In campaign finance case, Houston to argue against its own rules | Houston Chronicle

City officials will argue that the city’s election ordinance is unconstitutional as part of a strategy to strengthen their position in a lawsuit that could shape the early stages of this year’s mayor’s race. After defending the city Monday in civil court, City Attorney David Feldman said he would write an opinion explaining to the City Council why its fundraising “blackout” rule is unconstitutional. A federal judge on Friday ruled that law likely violated the First Amendment. A separate lawsuit by likely mayoral candidate Chris Bell, the subject of a hearing in state court Monday, accused the city of failing to strictly enforce its fundraising law. Feldman intends to take advantage of the ruling in the federal case to convince the judge in the Bell lawsuit that Bell no longer has a case.

Texas: New $1.78M voting machines arrive in Jefferson County | Beaumont Enterprise

Jefferson County voters received new voting machines Monday to replace an outdated and worn-out system that caused consternation for vote-counters and poll-watchers alike, especially in the past election cycle. The new machines, which cost $1,782,900, were delivered to the county’s counting station on Viterbo Road in Nederland two weeks after Commissioners Court approved the purchase from Hart Intercivic of Austin.

Texas: Three Elections, No Winners Yet | The Texas Tribune

Texas voters will still be sifting through candidates to fill out the legislative roster after the Legislature convenes next week. All three of Tuesday’s special legislative elections are headed for runoffs, according to unofficial numbers from the secretary of state’s website. While a clear leader emerged in each race, no one broke the required 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff in three crowded elections — Senate District 26, House District 17 and House District 123.

Texas: New year brings new hurdle for voter registration | Corpus Christi Caller-Times

Deputy voter registrars — the volunteers and political operatives who register voters — watched their certifications become as useless as old calendars at midnight Wednesday. Like replacing calendars, attending a training seminar and obtaining a new deputy voter registrar certification every two years isn’t exactly a new problem. Certifications have expired every even-numbered year since the late 1980s. For Battleground Texas, though, the certification process poses a particularly large hurdle. Nearly 9,000 volunteers with the Democratic Party-affiliated organization have become deputy voter registrars as part of a coordinated campaign to boost voter turnout. Volunteers will have to attend training seminars in every county where they want to register voters.

Texas: Voting rights fight looms over Latino clout in Texas city | Associated Press

When the movie Urban Cowboy made this refinery town famous in 1980, the honky-tonk Gilley’s was booming and wannabe cowpokes from the white Houston suburbs flocked here to drink and dance. Houston was the big city, but Pasadena was for kicks. Today Pasadena is a mostly working-class Hispanic suburb that looks as hard-ridden in some pockets as the mechanical bull that bucked John Travolta. Gilley’s burned down years ago. Now a federal lawsuit accuses the town’s white council members of leading a discriminatory plan to turn back the clock. Pasadena is preparing to change the makeup of its city council in a way that city leaders hope fosters new development, but that some Hispanics say dilutes their influence. The case could become a test of the Supreme Court ruling last year that struck down most of the federal Voting Rights Act, giving cities in many Southern states new latitude to change election laws affecting minorities without first getting federal approval.

Texas: Activists decry voter registrar training requirement | Houston Chronicle

A decades-old part of Texas’ election code is receiving new attention as Democrats look to chart a path forward and maintain their ranks of volunteers qualified to register voters. Perhaps no organization is expected to feel the effect more than Battleground Texas, whose thousands of deputy voter registrars will lose their certification Dec. 31, and will have to go through training before they can earn it back in the new year. “This is wildly burdensome,” said Mimi Marziani, voter protection director at Battleground Texas. “The only logical explanation is that all of those things are aimed at the same goal, which is making it much harder to vote.” Under state election law, deputy volunteer registrars serve two-year terms that expire at the end of even-numbered years. While the provision has been on the books since the 1980s, Democrats predict this year will bring its most far-reaching consequences yet because the number of deputy volunteer registrars has ballooned in just two years.

Texas: Jefferson County Commissioners approve purchase of new electronic voting machines | KBTV

Jefferson County Commissioners have approved the purchase of a new electronic voting system the County Clerk says will ensure the integrity of the elections and is scheduled to be in place for the May elections. Commissioners voted 4-0 to buy the Hart Intercivic eSlate machines. Commissioner Bo Alfred wasn’t at the meeting. The County is buying the machines under a lease-purchase agreement of about $1.7 million. The County will receive a $175,000 discount for buying the machines before the end of the year and a possible $75,000 discount in a buy back from ES and S, the company that sold the county the electronic voting machines it’s been using for about ten years.

Texas: State representative files bills to counter voter ID law | The Observer

State Rep. Poncho Nevárez pre-filed 3 bills, HB534, HB535, and HB536 regarding the Texas voter ID law enacted in 2011, which was ruled unconstitutional by a Federal District Court Judge in early October. Judge Nelva Gonzalez Ramos struck down the voter ID law expressing that it “creates an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote” and results in “an impermissible discriminatory effect against Hispanics and African Americans” while also constituting a “poll tax.”  Although the U.S. Supreme Court permitted the Texas voter ID law to be enforced in the past elections in November, pending its appeal, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and Justice Elena Kagan dissented explaining that more than 600,000 registered Texas voters may be prevented from voting due to lack of the proper identification.

Texas: Judge in Voting Rights Case Made ‘Winners Out of Clear Losers’ | Legal Times

Lawyers for the state of Texas have accused a federal district judge of wrongfully awarding “a consolation prize” of more than $1 million in attorney fees to groups that challenged the state’s redistricting plans. The challengers, which included Texas state legislators, voters and civil rights organizations, argued that they were entitled to the money because a court found that the redistricting plans ran afoul of the federal Voting Rights Act. Texas argued it was the winner because the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 struck down a section of the voting rights law that required the state to go to the court for approval in the first place.
U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer sided with the challengers, entering an order in June awarding fees. Texas on Monday filed its opening brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. “Trial courts have discretion when it comes to fee awards, but they do not have discretion to make winners out of clear losers,” Texas Solicitor General Jonathan Mitchell wrote. “The fee award is unprecedented, unlawful, and should be vacated.”

Texas: Secretary of State: Harrison County’s elections issues serious | The Marshall News Messenger

Keith Ingram, director of elections for the Secretary of State’s Office, described in a letter, addressed to Harrison County Judge Hugh Taylor, just how serious the mistakes and oversights made by the county’s elections administrator Becky Dotson were for the 2014 general election. The letter was one of the things the local elections commission took into consideration Friday as they called for Dotson’s termination, which was approved by the Harrison County Commissioners Court. “These issues are very serious,” Ingram wrote in the letter dated Nov. 26. Ingram said that after reading articles regarding the concerns and also a letter to the editor from Dotson printed in the Marshall News Messenger, he decided to give the county judge the Secretary of State’s perspective on the situation. In the letter, he noted how he became aware of the issues after being notified by military and overseas voters that they hadn’t received their ballots by the deadline in compliance with the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act.

Texas: Jefferson County leaders consider replacing embattled embattled election machines | KBMT

In November, Jefferson County Clerk Carolyn Guidry told 12News that the problems plaguing the elections stemmed from issues with the ES&S electronic voting machines. She’s not been a fan of those machines ever since commissioners first voted to purchase them. That’s why on Monday, she will hold a workshop in which commissioners will consider an alternative in hopes of preventing future fiascos. Becky Duhon is a Jefferson County voter who lost faith in the county’s voting process after the November elections. Duhon said, “I thought it was going to be fair and done properly, but it wasn’t, so I don’t think we should have a recount every year.  I just think they need to get the proper working machines that way it would be fair for everybody, no matter Republicans, Democrats, or whatever.”

Texas: Election Season Headed for Overtime | The Texas Tribune

The Texas Legislature will start the 2015 session with a handful of empty chairs and unfinished elections. State Senator Glenn Hegar, a Republican, was elected state comptroller of public accounts, and Mayor Julián Castro of San Antonio resigned after President Obama appointed him to be secretary of housing and urban development. Let the spree begin. State Senator Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, having lost the race for lieutenant governor, is running for mayor of her hometown. Representative Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, was just elected to another term in the House but wants the job Van de Putte is seeking. Representative Lois Kolkhorst, a Republican who also won re-election, is running for Hegar’s Senate seat. Representatives José Menéndez and Trey Martinez Fischer, both San Antonio Democrats, are eyeing Van de Putte’s Senate seat.

Texas: How many voters were disenfranchised by Texas’ ID law? | MSNBC

Both sides are already making claims and counterclaims about the impact of Texas’ strict voter ID law in last week’s election. There’s no question that some legitimate voters were disenfranchised by the law. But how many? Perhaps a large number — but the truth is, nobody knows. The difficulty of gauging the law’s effect, at least in the election’s immediate aftermath, points to an irony that has characterized the voter ID controversy nationally: Though lawyers challenging ID measures have marshaled reams of compelling evidence to show how they could keep voters from the polls, individual elections are not well-suited to demonstrating the impact. That’s not stopping partisans from jumping into the debate. At a post-election event last week, Gilberto Hinojosa, the chair of the Texas Democratic Party, said the ID law was “a large part of the reason” for the decline in state’s 2010 turnout (though he also said that Texans who didn’t turn out “need to look at yourself in the mirror”). His Republican counterpart, Steve Munisteri, just as confidently dismissed the idea. Around 600,000 registered Texas voters don’t have one of the limited forms of ID that the law allows, according to evidence presented at trial. The state did almost nothing to challenge that assessment. That means there’s no doubt whatsoever that the law disenfranchised legitimate voters. MSNBC met with several of them last week.

Texas: Turnout Down in Texas, and Democrats Claim a Reason: Voter ID Law | New York Times

Say this for the state’s new voter ID law — it gave Texas Democrats a patsy for the thumping they got on election night. Some Democrats blamed the law for keeping their voters at home last week. At the same time, another type of voting was growing — one that is historically more likely to result in election fraud. In his bid for re-election last week, Senator John Cornyn finished 27.2 percentage points ahead of his Democratic opponent, David Alameel. Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican who led every public poll conducted during the race for governor, proved those surveys right, finishing more than 20 percentage points ahead of the much-vaunted Wendy Davis, a Democrat. Mr. Abbott finished with more raw votes and a higher percentage of the total than Gov. Rick Perry in 2010. Ms. Davis finished with both a lower percentage of the vote than her 2010 counterpart, Bill White, a Democrat, and a lower vote count. The overall number of votes cast in this year’s election was less than in 2010 — by about 271,000. Although that appears to be part of a national trend, Texas Democrats blamed the state’s voter ID law, which they say discourages people from showing up.

Texas: Countywide voting, machine malfunctions account for Election Day confusion, clerk says | Southeast Texas Record

The confusion surrounding the last minute changes in election results had to do with some new laws in place and technical difficulties, county officials say. There has been controversy since the Nov. 4 General Election in Jefferson County, with a few Republican candidates going to bed thinking they were winners after most of the precincts had reported only to find Wednesday morning that they had actually lost the election. Chief Deputy County Clerk Theresa Goodness said watching the results based on precincts reporting can be misleading, because in Jefferson County voting is “countywide,” not limited to the precinct in which the voter resides. “In the 2013 constitutional amendment election , we changed to a countywide system. A voter can cast their ballot in any precinct on Election Day, just like in Early Voting,” Goodness said. Many voters aren’t even aware of that change, she said. So, for example, when it’s midnight and a candidate looks like they are ahead with 102 out of 106 precincts reporting, that really doesn’t mean every ballot has been counted for that precinct. So when Precinct 1 has turned in their ballots, that could mean there are ballots for different precincts in addition to Pct. 1, and Pct. 1 ballots could also be at other locations. Ballots from every precinct have to be turned in to accurately reflect an individual precinct’s votes, she said.

Texas: Jefferson County Clerk blames faulty voting equipment for delay | KBMT

Jefferson County Clerk Carolyn Guidry seemed pleased at voter turnout for the 2014 mid-term elections in Jefferson County. She says 37% of the county’s 146,039 registered voters cast ballots, that’s 53,710 voters who participated. However Guidry, who won re-election herself, was not pleased at how the county’s electronic voting system performed. Malfunctions caused the vote count to be delayed, and final results were not available until 4:00 a.m. the day after the elections. Guidry said, “It’s very frustrating when I have employees working 24 hours on elections, because of the flaws of a system.” Guidry blames ES&S voting equipment the county purchased in 2006.  Tuesday’s flaw was with the scanner that counts mail-in ballots, forcing Guidry to call for a technician to fix it, the closest one was in Tyler. It would take until 4 a.m. the next day to count all 3900 mail-in ballots, and when they were all counted some Republicans who had been in the lead, ended up losing.  Guidry says that’s because two-thirds of the mail-in ballots favored Democrats. But the mail-in ballot scanner was not the only problem of the night, not all voting machines had been shut down which made it impossible for votes in those machines to be counted.