Thread: Feds Reject Texas Voter ID Law

Feds Reject Texas Voter ID Law

By Julián Aguilar

Justice Departments Voter ID Determination
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The U.S. Department of Justice has rejected Texas' application for preclearance of its voter ID law, saying the state did not prove that the bill would not have a discriminatory effect on minority voters.

“The department’s letter states that Texas did not meet its burden under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of showing that the law will not have a discriminatory effect on minority voters, and therefore the department objects to the Texas voter identification law,” said Xochitl Hinojosa, a Justice Department spokeswoman. “According to the state’s own data, a Hispanic registered voter is at least 46.5%, and potentially 120%, more likely than a non-Hispanic registered voter to lack the required identification.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas E. Perez wrote in a letter to Keith Ingram, the director of Texas’ elections division on Monday:

“As noted above, an applicant for an election identification certificate will have to travel to a driver’s license office. This raises three discrete issues. First, according to the most recent American Community Survey three-year estimates, 7.3 percent of Hispanic or Latino households do not have an available vehicle, as compared with only 3.8 percent of non-Hispanic white households that lack an available vehicle. Statistically significant correlations exist between the Hispanic voting-age population percentage of a county, and the percentage of occupied housing units without a vehicle.

Second, in 81 of the state’s 254 counties, there are no operational driver’s license offices. The disparity in the rates between Hispanics and non-Hispanics with regard to the possession of either a driver’s license or personal identification card issued by DPS is particularly stark in counties without driver’s license offices. According to the September 2011 data, 10.0 percent of Hispanics in counties without driver’s license offices do not have either form of identification, compared to 5.5 percent of non-Hispanics. According to the January 2012 data, that comparison is 14.6 percent of Hispanics in counties without driver’s license offices, as compared to 8.8 percent of non-Hispanics. During the legislative hearings, one senator stated that some voters in his district could have to travel up to 176 miles roundtrip in order to reach a driver’s license office. The legislature tabled amendments that would have, for example, provided reimbursement to voters who live below the poverty line for travel expenses incurred in applying for the requisite identification.”

The bill, Senate Bill 14 by Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, was one of Gov. Rick Perry’s “emergency items” during the 82nd Legislature and requires voters to present a state-issued photo ID, such as a driver’s license, military ID, U.S. passport or concealed handgun license before casting a ballot.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who expected the federal government's rejection, said late last week he plans to forge ahead with the lawsuit he filed last month to have the bill implemented immediately. The Justice Department has until April 9 to respond to the lawsuit.

Abbott has cited the department’s rejections of recently passed laws similar to Texas’ voter ID law, not to mention that less-than-subtle warning from U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who said in Austin in December that the department would place Texas’ law under a microscope.

“It [the request] was submitted to them in July, and they kept delaying and delaying and delaying," Abbot said on Thursday. “We saw them reject a similar proposal in South Carolina and we couldn’t see them rejecting South Carolina and approving Texas."

The voter ID law “would have trampled on the constitutional right to cast a ballot for hundreds of thousands of Texans, said Texas Democratic Party spokeswoman Rebecca Acuña, praising the Justice Department’s ruling. “Republicans have wasted enough taxpayer dollars defending this voter suppression legislation.”

Feds Reject Texas Voter ID Law — Voter ID | The Texas Tribune