Texas: November Election Shows Texas Voter ID Means Long Wait At The Polls | Opposing Views

Texas’ new voter ID laws could cause voting delays of up to six hours in upcoming elections. About 14,000 voters were delayed while attempting to vote in Dallas County on Nov. 5, the Dallas Morning News reported. Thousands of Texas voters signed affidavits or cast provisional ballots because their name on the voting rolls didn’t exactly match their name on their photo ID. The affidavit testifies that the voter is who they say they are. If a voter refuses to sign an affidavit, they could cast a provisional ballot. The number of provisional ballots — 1,365 — is more than double the number from a similar election in 2011. It is unclear how many people signed affidavits, but two of the leading candidates for Texas governor in 2013, Republican Greg Abbott and Democrat Wendy Davis, both had to sign them. Davis’ driver’s license reads “Wendy Russell Davis,” while Abbott’s says “Gregory Wayne Abbott.”

Texas: Federal Judge Denies Abbott’s Motion To Move Voter ID Trial To After 2014 Election | Texas Public Radio

Federal District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos in Corpus Christi has denied Attorney General Greg Abbott’s request to move a lawsuit challenging Texas’ Voter ID law to a March trial date in 2015. Opening arguments will begin a few months before state general elections in September 2014. State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, the head of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus and a plaintiff in the case, said Abbott’s request of the court is more about political ambitions.

Texas: Voter ID woes could soar in higher-turnout elections, officials fear | Dallas Morning News

Delays at the polls this month due to glitches with voters’ identifications could signal a bigger problem to come next year, when many more turn out for state and county elections. Thousands of voters had to sign affidavits or cast provisional ballots on Nov. 5 — the first statewide election held under the state’s new voter identification law — because their name on the voter rolls did not exactly match the name on their photo ID. It took most only a short time, but election officials are concerned that a few minutes per voter to carefully check names and photos against voter registration cards, and then to have voters sign affidavits or fill out provisional paperwork, could snowball into longer waits and more frustration. A review by The Dallas Morning News found that 1,365 provisional ballots were filed in the state’s 10 largest counties. In most of them, the number of provisional ballots cast more than doubled from 2011, the last similar election, to 2013. Officials had no exact count for how many voters had to sign affidavits, but estimates are high. Among those who had to sign affidavits were the leading candidates for governor next year, Republican Greg Abbott and Democrat Wendy Davis.

Texas: Comal County Recount Results Released – No Change to CISD Bond Election | KGNB

The recounted results of the Nov. 5th election were released late Friday by Comal County Clerk Joy Streater after a 2-day long recount process. The recount became necessary after it was discovered that more than 23-hundred votes had not been counted on election night after polls had closed. An improperly authorized audit of the votes the following day complicated matters, and so Comal County went to the Texas Secretary of State’s Office and asked for help in correcting the situation. They laid out a path that included petitioning a Comal County District Court Judge for a court-ordered recount, which was granted on Tuesday of this week. The recount then began Thursday morning, with County Clerk Joy Streater as the appointed Recount Supervisor.

Texas: Election recount drags on in Comal County | San Antonio Express-News

The recount of ballots cast Nov. 5 in Comal County proceeded Thursday evening under the watchful eyes of staffers from the Texas Secretary of State's Office. “We're going to finish today,” County Clerk Joy Streater, the recount supervisor, predicted from the elections office where the recount of 16,000 ballots had commenced at 8:30 a.m. Schertz Mayor Michael Carpenter later said he'd heard it might be 11 p.m. or later before results would be released for city council races there and for state constitutional amendments and contests in the Comal Independent School District and the Cibolo Creek Municipal Authority.

Texas: Voter ID Case May Be Postponed Until After 2014 Election | Texas Public Radio

A federal court in Corpus Christi will decide this week whether or not to postpone the trial date for a case challenging the constitutionality of the Texas voter ID law. About a week ago, Federal District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos set the trial date for Sept. 2, 2014, about two months before the 2014 State General Election. Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office filed a request this week asking for the trial to be pushed back to March 2015.

Texas: Comal County recount might not resolve ballot mess | San Antonio Express-News

The court-ordered recount of Nov. 5 election results in Comal County, set for Thursday, might not resolve concerns about balloting irregularities in the four affected entities. Accurate results could be impossible if the electronic voting machines were encoded with the wrong ballots, as suspected in one Schertz contest, said County Clerk Joy Streater, the recount supervisor. “It seems that people were given ballots who were not eligible to vote in that particular race,” said Streater, who was appointed Tuesday by state District Judge Gary Steel to oversee the recount prompted by a county petition. She's unsure if technicians from Electronic Systems & Software, the vendor of the “direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting machines,” can weed out the improper ballots. Despite discussions about hand-tabulating individual “vote image logs” of each ballot recorded by the machines, Streater instead plans to print out vote tallies from each of the 179 machines. “If we hand count 16,000 ballots, we'll be here 'til Christmas and we'll just get the same results that are now in the machines,” she said, noting the recount may not conclude until Friday.

Texas: Voter ID Case Gets September 2014 Trial Date | CBS

A federal judge has set a September 2014 trial date for a lawsuit seeking to overturn Texas’ Voter ID — just ahead of a pivotal general election. U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos said Friday the trial will start September 2 in Corpus Christi. Opponents hope to halt the law before next year’s much-watched election. Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is running to replace Governor Rick Perry in 2014, is defending the 2011 law. His office declined to comment Friday. The law requires Texans to show one of six forms of identification at the polls.

Texas: Comal County voting concerns affect Schertz council races | San Antonio Express-News

A voting machine malfunction in Comal County has forced a recount of the Nov. 5 election results, which include three Schertz City Council races. Comal County officials are trying to determine how 2,415 ballots that were not included in the initial election results were discovered in an audit of the county's electronic voting machines The revised election results so far have not affected the outcomes of the three Schertz council races - Places 3, 4 and 5. Schertz's city limits extend into three counties — Bexar, Guadalupe and Comal. Today, Comal County election officials will canvass the results of the Nov. 5 election. After the canvassing , county elections administrator Julie Kassab said the county will request a court order for a recount. “We will canvas the original results from (Nov. 5) even though we know they are inaccurate,” Kassab said. “As soon as we've canvassed (the ballots), we will go to the district court judge to request the recount be done as soon as possible.” Kassab said the recount, which will be done by hand, should take three to five days to tabulate.

Texas: Low Turnout or Bad Law?: Voter ID Effects Uncertain: Turnout boost heaviest in counties with local referendums | The Austin Chronicle

The turnout numbers from the Nov. 5 election recall the gnomic phrases of former Defense Department Sec. Donald Rumsfeld trying to explain what went wrong in Iraq. There are the "known knowns" – how many people turned up to vote, and how they voted. There are the "known unknowns" – how many people had trouble voting because of the state's stringent new voter ID law. And then there are the "unknown unknowns": What kept 91.5% of Texans away from the polls, and what role did that law play? The answers to the latter could become exhibit A in the ongoing federal legal challenges to the Texas rules. This was the first election under the new photo ID law passed in 2011. Republicans and statewide officials pointed out that, with 1,144,844 ballots cast statewide, turnout was actually higher than in the last two constitutional elections: 2009 (1,058,986 votes cast) and 2011 (690,052). On Oct. 25, Secretary of State John Steen issued a press release noting that, in the first four days of early voting, almost 95,000 Texans had cast a ballot in the state's 15 largest counties. "That is more than double the 45,379 voters who voted at the same point in 2011, the most recent constitutional amendment election."

Texas: White guy wins after leading voters to believe he’s black | KHOU

Dave Wilson chuckles as he talks about his unorthodox political campaign. "I'd always said it was a long shot," Wilson says. "No, I didn't expect to win." Still, he figured he'd have fun running, because he was fed up with what he called "all the shenanigans" at the Houston Community College System. As a conservative white Republican running in a district whose voters are overwhelmingly black Democrats, the odds seemed overwhelmingly against him. Then he came up with an idea, an advertising strategy that his opponent found "disgusting." If a white guy didn't have a chance in a mostly African-American district, Wilson would lead voters to think he's black. And it apparently worked. In one of the biggest political upsets in Houston politics this election season, Wilson -- an anti-gay activist and former fringe candidate for mayor -- emerged as the surprise winner over 24-year incumbent Bruce Austin. His razor thin margin of victory, only 26 votes, was almost certainly influenced by his racially tinged campaign. "Every time a politician talks, he's out there deceiving voters," he says.

Texas: Comal County will seek a recount over election oddities | San Antonio Express-News

Comal County wants to recount Tuesday's ballots by hand to resolve problems with both the initial election results from electronic voting machines and the revised tallies those machines produced Wednesday. The revised numbers didn't change the outcome of any race. Confidence in them, though, plummeted this week because they indicate 649 ballots were cast in the contest for Place 3 on the Schertz City Council, despite only 540 voters being registered in the part of the town that's in Comal County, officials said. County Judge Sherman Krause conferred with the machine vendor, Election Systems & Software, and the secretary of state's office. The balloting included three at-large council races in Schertz, a Comal Independent School District bond election and a contested seat on the Cibolo Municipal Authority board. An audit of all 179 voting machines Wednesday showed 16,101 votes were cast countywide, not the 13,686 reported Tuesday night. The Schertz numbers didn't shrink, they grew.

Texas: Election suggests trouble on the horizon | MSNBC

For years, Stephanie Cochran has voted without any problems. But when she went to the polls Tuesday in her upscale, diverse neighborhood here, things went a lot less smoothly—thanks to Texas’ strict new voter ID law. On the voter rolls, she’s listed as Stephanie Gilardo Cochran, while on her driver’s license, she’s Stephanie G. Cochran—a mismatch common to married or divorced women including Wendy Davis, the likely Democratic candidate for governor next year. As a result, Cochran faced what she described as a barrage of questions from poll workers about the discrepancy. In the end, Cochran was able to vote by signing an affidavit in which she swore, on penalty of perjury, that she was who she claimed to be. But the experience left her angry: She told msnbc that she sees the law as an attempt to keep women from the polls. “It’s against us,” Cochran said. “It’s to keep us from voting for Wendy.”

Texas: Stringent Voter ID Law Makes a Dent at Polls | New York Times

First, Judge Sandra Watts was stopped while trying to vote because the name on her photo ID, the same one she had used for voter registration and identification for 52 years, did not exactly match her name on the official voter rolls. A few days later, state Senator Wendy Davis, a Democrat who became a national celebrity after her filibuster over a new abortion law, had the same problem in early voting. So did her likely Republican opponent in next year’s governor’s race, Attorney General Greg Abbott. They were all able to vote after signing affidavits attesting that they were who they claimed to be. But not Jim Wright, a former speaker of the House in Washington, whose expired driver’s license meant he could not vote until he went home and dug a certified copy of his birth certificate out of a box. On Tuesday, Texas unveiled its tough new voter ID law, the only state to do so this year, and the rollout was sometimes rocky. But interviews with opponents and supporters of the new law, which required voters for the first time to produce a state-approved form of photo identification to vote, suggest that in many parts of the state, the law’s first day went better than critics had expected.

Texas: Jim Wright gets his voter ID card; local resident not as lucky | Weatherford Democrat

Former U.S. Speaker of the House Jim Wright was able to resolve his problem obtaining a new Texas Voter ID card in time for Tuesday’s election. A Weatherford resident was not as fortunate. Wright, a former World War II bombardier, Weatherford resident and mayor, Congressman and now a Fort Worth resident, says he’s finally obtained the documents he needs to vote under new state law on Election Day. Wright told The Associated Press on Monday that he received a temporary version of a state ID that proves his identity under Texas’ Voter ID law, which gets its first major test in Tuesday’s election. Wright, 90, was turned away last week when he tried to obtain proper ID with an expired driver’s license or university faculty ID. Weatherford resident Lisa Blevins was not as lucky.

Texas: Is voter ID failing the test already? | MSNBC

Jim Wright was once the speaker of the U.S. House, and third in line to the presidency. But Texas’ strict voter ID law nearly prevented him from casting a vote this year. With several major elections and numerous lower-profile races scheduled for Tuesday, Wright’s difficulties are the latest sign that, a year after President Obama pledged to fix America’s broken voting system, it’s more dysfunctional than ever. Wright, 90, has voted every year since 1944. But he realized last week that his driver’s license had expired. Wright has a faculty ID from Texas Christian University, where he teaches political science, but Texas’s voting law doesn’t accept university IDs. So he went Saturday to a government office to get a state ID card. But he was told he’d need to come back Monday with a certified copy of his birth certificate. Wright told msnbc that he was finally able to get his ID on Monday. But he worries about others who may not be able to take as much time. “I think you become a bit discouraged and dismayed and confused, and throw up your hands and say, ‘I’m not going to vote,’” said Wright, a Democrat who served as Speaker in the 1980s and was one of a minority of Texas congressmen who voted for the 1965 Voting Rights Act. In fact, Wright said he thinks dissuading voters is the point of the law. “I do believe that there’s an apprehension on their part, unreasonably so, of too many people voting. I hate to say that.”

Texas: Voter ID Law Ensnares Former Speaker of the House, Candidates for Governor, State Judge | The Nation

Former Speaker of the House Jim Wright has voted in every election since 1944 and represented Texas in Congress for thirty-four years. But when he went to his local Department of Public Safety office to obtain the new voter ID required to vote—which he never needed in any previous election—the 90-year-old Wright was denied. His driver’s license is expired and his Texas Christian University faculty ID is not accepted as a valid form of voter ID. To be able to vote in Texas, including in Tuesday’s election for statewide constitutional amendments, Wright’s assistant will have to get a certified copy of his birth certificate, which costs $22. According to the state of Texas, 600,000 to 800,000 registered voters in Texas don’t have a valid form of government-issued photo ID. Wright is evidently one of them. But unlike Wright, most of these voters will not have an assistant or the political connections of a former Speaker of the House to help them obtain a birth certificate to prove their identify, nor can they necessarily make two trips to the DMV office or afford a birth certificate. The devil is in the details when it comes to voter ID. And the rollout of the new law in Texas is off to a very bad start. “I earnestly hope these unduly stringent requirements on voters won’t dramatically reduce the number of people who vote,” Wright told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “I think they will reduce the number to some extent.”

Texas: Voter ID law snags former U.S. House Speaker Jim Wright | Charlotte Observer

Former U.S. House Speaker Jim Wright was denied a voter ID card Saturday at a Texas Department of Public Safety office. "Nobody was ugly to us, but they insisted that they wouldn't give me an ID," Wright said. The legendary Texas political figure says that he has worked things out with DPS and that he will get a state-issued personal identification card in time for him to vote Tuesday in the state and local elections. But after the difficulty he had this weekend getting a proper ID card, Wright, 90, expressed concern that such problems could deter others from voting and stifle turnout. After spending much of his life fighting to make it easier to vote, the Democratic Party icon said he is troubled by what he's seeing happen under the state's new voter ID law. "I earnestly hope these unduly stringent requirements on voters won't dramatically reduce the number of people who vote," Wright told the Star-Telegram. "I think they will reduce the number to some extent."

Texas: Voter ID law frustrates some candidates; state argues lawsuit should be dismissed | Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

The new law requiring Texas voters show government-issued photo identification before casting a ballot is working as intended, according to state officials. And the proof is in the two weeks of early voting that ended Friday. “I gave my driver’s license and it went as advertised,” Gov. Rick Perry — whose full name is James Richard Perry — told reporters after he voted Wednesday. “The elections are going quite well,” Perry said. “As a matter of fact, we had a substantial bigger turnout from 2011.” This was in reference to the previous vote on constitutional amendments when less than 6 percent of Texas voters went to the polls. This year, the Texas Legislature is asking the electorate to approve nine propositions, particularly one that would allow the lawmakers to withdraw $2 billion from the Rainy Day Fund to begin funding water projects. However, for state Sen. Wendy Davis, who hopes to replace Perry when his current four-year term expires in early 2015, it was a slightly different experience when she voted Monday. Davis, D-Fort Worth, had to sign an affidavit before voting because the names on her voter registration card and driver’s license are slightly different: Wendy Davis on her voter card and Wendy Russell Davis on her driver’s license.  The same thing happened to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, the perceived Republican frontrunner in the 2014 gubernatorial race: His name on his driver’s license is Gregory Wayne Abbott but on his voter card it’s Greg Abbott. End of the story in the two-year voter ID fight? Not quite.

Texas: 1 of 7 early voters in Dallas County being forced to sign affidavit to verify ID | Dallas Morning News

At least one out of every seven early voters in Dallas County has had to sign an affidavit verifying his or her identity as part of Texas’ new voter ID law. Though no one in Dallas County has been prevented from voting — or even forced to cast a provisional ballot — because a name discrepancy, officials said women are being especially impacted by the requirements. And Toni Pippins-Poole, the county’s elections administrator, said the totals through the first five days of early voting for the Nov. 5 election are a conservative estimate of the potential inconvenience. “I know it’s more,” she said, adding that the totals don’t cover all polling locations. “Not all the reports have come through.” Most of the talk about the new voter identification law, which went into effect this summer, has focused on the requirement that voters present a government-issued photo ID to cast a ballot.

Texas: Wendy Davis’ fix to voting law lets her cast ballot | MSNBC

Wendy Davis could have been barred from voting by Texas’ strict voter ID law—along with her likely Republican opponent in next year’s governor’s race, too. That both will be able to cast ballots is thanks to a change in the law that Davis herself pushed. Davis, the Democratic candidate for governor next year, showed up Monday to vote early in her hometown of Fort Worth. Several constitutional amendments and other proposals are on the ballot in Texas this year. It’s the first election to be held under the state’s controversial voter ID law, which the U.S. Justice Department has challenged as racially discriminatory. But when the state senator got to her polling place, poll workers noted that the name on her driver’s license, Wendy Russell Davis, didn’t match that on her voter rolls, Wendy Davis. That meant that under the law, she was required to sign an affidavit swearing that she was who she said she was. “It was a simple procedure,” Davis told reporters afterward. “I signed the affidavit and was able to vote with no problem.” But it was thanks to Davis’ own efforts that she even had that option.

Texas: Election shows impact of voter ID laws | Washington Post

If not for Wendy Davis, Greg Abbott might not be able to vote. When Abbott, the Texas Attorney General running for governor as a Republican next year, goes to vote in state constitutional elections this year, he will have to sign an affidavit affirming his identity. That’s because Abbott’s driver’s license identifies him as Gregory Wayne Abbott, but on the voter rolls, he’s just Greg Abbott, a spokesman told the San Antonio Express-News. The discrepancy will mean Abbott has to sign the affidavit in order to get a ballot under a new law requiring voters in Texas to show an identification at the polling place. That part of the law, requiring a signature if there’s a discrepancy between names, was sponsored by state Sen. Wendy Davis (D), the opponent Abbott is likely to face in next year’s general election. Davis voted against the voter identification bill, even though she offered the amendment to allow for minor discrepancies. It’s a provision that many Texans are having to take advantage of this year — including Davis herself. When Davis showed up to vote Monday in Fort Worth, it turned out her driver’s license identified her as Wendy Russell Davis, while the voter rolls omitted her middle name.

Texas: Early Voting in the 2013 Texas Constitutional Amendment Election: Two Views | Texas Election Law Blog

In the election news cycle yesterday and today, one of the stories has been about how smoothly picture I.D. voting has been going in the first statewide election since the law went into effect. On the one hand, state and county election officials report that there have been almost no problems at all. Married and divorced women have not been disproportionately turned away at the polls due to identification issues resulting from name changes, and there are no reports of widespread provisional voting or unprepared voters. The media take on this is that the Texas Democratic Party has lost traction and credibility on the issue of picture I.D. voting, arguably because the party oversold the potential that voters would be turned away at the polling places. The State of Texas and the U.S. Department of Justice might both cite improvements in the adminstration of picture I.D. requirements in Texas for this election – among other things, the State broadly expanded the number of entities authorized to issue photo i.d.s, and the Department of Justice might regard these improvements as attempts by the State to mitigate liabilities for civil rights violations in direct response to DOJ’s civil rights lawsuit over picture I.D.

Texas: Voter ID law makes it harder for women to vote, Democrats claim | theguardian.com

Some Democrats in Texas are claiming that the state's controversial new voter identification law could make it harder for women to cast their ballots. Texans will go to the polls on November 5 to vote on nine proposed amendments to the state constitution, and some areas are also holding local government elections. It is the first statewide vote since it became mandatory in Texas to show a government-issued photo ID at polling places. Some critics of the new law believe that women who have changed their name, for example after marriage or divorce, may be discouraged from voting or run into difficulties while trying. If a prospective voter's name does not exactly match a name on the list of registered voters, it is up to the election officer at the polling station to determine whether the name is "substantially similar". If so, the person will be allowed to cast a ballot after signing an affidavit attesting to his or her identity. Those without approved photo ID can vote "provisionally" and then have six days after election day to present acceptable proof to a county registrar.

Texas: Voter ID law affects female voters | Times Record News

Newly enacted state law requiring voters to show picture identification is causing some hiccups at early-voting locations around Texas, according to a report published Sunday. Rules requiring that a voter's name on IDs exactly match that listed in voter registration databases are especially problematic for women, The Dallas Morning News (http://dallasne.ws/19ISAWj ) reported. The general election is Nov. 5. To lessen the hassle, state officials say that if names are "substantially similar," a voter can immediately sign an affidavit verifying his or her identity, and then vote. Another option is casting a provisional ballot, then providing supporting information later. Provisional ballots are held until elections officials can verify that they should count. State officials have promised to err on the side of the person trying to vote, rather than the other way around.

Texas: New Voter ID Law Forces Governor Candidate Wendy Davis To Sign Affidavit To Vote | KERA

Add gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis to the growing list of women who are having problems voting because of Texas' new photo ID law. Davis, a Democratic state senator, was voting early in Fort Worth on Monday morning when poll workers made her sign an affidavit to verify her identity. Why? Her photo ID included her maiden name, Wendy Russell Davis. But voter registration records showed: Wendy Davis. Davis used the incident as an opportunity to tell the media who had gathered that women who have had name changes may be discouraged about voting.

Texas: Could name change spur Texas voter ID issue? Officials say no | Tucson Sentinel

While most of the focus on the recently implemented Texas voter ID law has been related to allegations of racial discrimination, some onlinereports have recently raised concerns that the law could disenfranchise a different demographic: people who have legally changed their names, particularly women. But election officials say the concerns are unwarranted. The media reports suggest that voters who lack an ID updated to reflect their legal name could be turned away from the polls. Women, who often change their name after marriage or divorce, are at a higher risk of disenfranchisement under the voter ID law, those reports say. But election officials deny the risk, saying protocols are in place for cases in which the name on a person's voter ID is not identical to his or her legal name. "We encourage poll workers to look at the entirety of the ID," said Alicia Pierce, spokeswoman for the Texas secretary of state's office. "If the names are similar but not identical, you sign an affidavit saying you're the same person."

Texas: Voter ID law sparks some name-discrepancy hiccups | Associated Press

Newly enacted state law requiring voters to show picture identification is causing some hiccups at early-voting locations around Texas, according to a report published Sunday. Rules requiring that a voter's name on IDs exactly match that listed in voter registration databases are especially problematic for women, The Dallas Morning News reported. The general election is Nov. 5. To lessen the hassle, state officials say that if names are "substantially similar," a voter can immediately sign an affidavit verifying his or her identity, and then vote. Another option is casting a provisional ballot, then providing supporting information later. Provisional ballots are held until elections officials can verify that they should count. State officials have promised to err on the side of the person trying to vote, rather than the other way around. The voter ID law, championed by conservative activists, was approved in 2011 but didn't take effect until recently because of legal challenges. It requires voters to produce picture identification, such as a Texas driver's license, a concealed handgun license or a special election ID certificate issued just for voting.

Texas: Voter ID law: already disorder at the polls | Dallas Morning News

We’ve known, thanks to analyses such as this based on Reuters/Ipsos polling data, that voter ID laws will suppress voting by younger folks, those without college education, the poor and Hispanics. But married women? A story out of Corpus Christi should be raising eyebrows about the negative impact the Texas voter ID requirement may have. When 117th District Court Judge Sandra Watts went for early voting, her identity was questioned because she uses her maiden name as her middle name. She uses her real middle name on her voter registration. So she had to sign an affidavit saying she was, indeed, who she said she was. It was the first time in 49 years of voting that her identity has been questioned and she has had trouble voting. “What I have used for voter registration and for identification for the last 52 years was not sufficient yesterday when I went to vote,” Judge Watts said. And this is a judge.

Texas: What Impact the Texas Voter Identification Law Has on Women Voters | TIME

In Texas, where early voting for the Nov. 5 elections started on Monday, the state’s controversial photo ID law is being enforced for the first time as citizens cast their ballots. In 2012, the Department of Justice found that the law discriminated against minorities and low-income voters in the state — now there’s  growing concern that it places an unnecessary burden on women. Name changes that may have come as a result of marriage or divorce, reports say, may cause problems at the polls. On Tuesday, a local television station ran a story about a judge who faced an issue at the voting booth. “What I have used for voter registration and for identification for the last 52 years was not sufficient yesterday when I went to vote,” 117th District Court Judge Sandra Watts told Kiii News of South Texas. She had to sign an affidavit affirming her identity in order to vote because the last name on her voter registration card, her maiden name, didn’t match the last name on her license. “This is the first time I have ever had a problem voting,” she said. State officials say the issue, however, may not cause as many problems as the reports suggest. “We want to be very careful not to cause false alarm,” Alicia Pierce, a spokesperson for the Texas Secretary of State’s office, told TIME. “We’ve worked very closely with poll workers to create the right forms and the right training to make sure this isn’t an issue at the polls.”