Tag Archives: Voter ID Law

U.S. appeals court says Texas can implement voter ID law

FILE PHOTO: A voter enters a polling station to cast his vote in the Texas Primary in Seguin, Texas, U.S. on March 4, 2008. REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi/File Photo

By Dan Whitcomb

(Reuters) – The state of Texas won at least a temporary victory on Tuesday in its bid to implement a controversial voter identification law when a federal appeals court stayed a ruling by a U.S. district court judge that barred its enforcement.

A three-member panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans voted 2-1 to put the lower court judge’s ruling on hold while it considers the constitutionality of the law, which was passed this year by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature.

That bill was meant to fix elements of a 2011 voter ID measure that was considered one of the strictest in the United States and subject to years of court challenges during the Obama administration.

President Donald Trump, who campaigned on cutting voter fraud, has supported Texas’ bid to require that voters show a form of identification.

“The state has made a strong showing that it is likely to succeed on the merits (of the case)” Judges Jennifer Elrod and Jerry Smith wrote in a six-page ruling.

In a four-page dissenting opinion, Judge James Graves wrote that if the 5th Circuit was going to take up the case, it should have stayed the entire law from taking effect until a final ruling was issued.

Lauren Ehrsam, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice, said in a written statement “We are pleased that the Fifth Circuit has stayed the injunction and allowed Texas to proceed with its duly enacted voter identification laws.”

“Preserving the integrity of the ballot is vital to our democracy, and the Fifth Circuit’s order allows Texas to continue to fulfill that duty as this case moves forward,” Ehrsam said.

Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa could not be reached for comment on the ruling on Tuesday evening.

Hiojosa has previously likened the voter ID requirements to “Jim Crow-era tactics” designed to keep Republican lawmakers in power.Critics say the Texas law and similar statutes enacted in other states were tailored to make it harder for minorities and immigrants, including black and Hispanic voters who are less likely to have the authorized IDs and tend to favor Democrats, to cast ballots.

Backers say the laws are necessary to prevent voter fraud and are no more onerous than the requirements imposed by states for driving a motor vehicle.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Richard Borsuk)

U.S. judge throws out Texas voter ID law supported by Trump

FILE PHOTO: A ballot is placed into a locked ballot box by a poll worker as people line-up to vote early at the San Diego County Elections Office in San Diego, California, U.S., November 7, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

By Bernie Woodall

(Reuters) – A federal court judge on Wednesday threw out a Texas voter identification law that was supported by the Trump administration, but the state’s attorney general said his office would appeal the ruling.

The judge’s ruling said changes to the law passed earlier this year by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature that were meant to be less discriminatory than an earlier one did not accomplish that.

U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos of the Southern District of Texas said the state did not allow enough types of photo IDs for voters, “even though the (5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals) was clearly critical of Texas having the most restrictive list in the country.”

President Donald Trump campaigned on cutting voter fraud, picking up a theme of fellow Republicans across the country. Critics have said the Texas law and similar statutes enacted in other Republican-governed states are an effort to suppress voting, including among blacks and Hispanics who tend to favor Democrats.

Trump has made unsubstantiated allegations that millions of people voted illegally for his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, in last November’s election, in which Clinton won the popular vote but lost the decisive Electoral College count.

“Today’s ruling is outrageous,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement.

Paxton, a Republican, added that changes to the law passed by the legislature included all those asked for by the 5th Circuit.

The Justice Department filed a brief last month asking the court to halt action against the Texas voter ID law, saying the state’s new law fixed discriminatory issues of the state’s 2011 voter ID law.

Texas Democrats welcomed Ramos’ ruling.

“Jim Crow-era tactics have kept Texas Republicans in power,” said state Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa. “From discriminatory gerrymandering to discriminatory voter ID laws, it has become entirely clear that Texas Republicans are rigging our election system.”

Ramos wrote in a 27-page ruling that voters with little education, or simply a lack of confidence, may forfeit their legitimate right to vote because of fear of being charged with perjury.

She said Texas was overreaching by “threatening severe penalties for perjury,” and noted that the state’s “history of voter intimidation” led her not to accept the new voter ID law as a solution for the “purposeful discrimination” in the one it attempted to improve upon.

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Editing by James Dalgleish and Peter Cooney)

U.S. judge finds Texas voter ID law was intended to discriminate

By Ian Simpson

(Reuters) – A Texas law that requires voters to show identification before casting ballots was enacted with the intent to discriminate against black and Hispanic voters, a U.S. federal judge ruled on Monday.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos came after an appeals court last year said the 2011 law had an outsized impact on minority voters. The court sent the case back to Ramos to determine if lawmakers intentionally wrote the legislation to be discriminatory.

Ramos said in a 10-page decision that evidence “establishes that a discriminatory purpose was at least one of the substantial or motivating factors behind passage” of the measure.

“The terms of the bill were unduly strict,” she added.

Spokesmen for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Jr. and Governor Greg Abbott, both Republicans, could not be reached for comment.

In January, after the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, Paxton said it was a common sense law to prevent voter fraud.

The ruling on voter ID comes about a month after two federal judges ruled that Texas lawmakers drew up three U.S. congressional districts to undermine the influence of Hispanic voters.

The measure requires voters to present photo identification such as a driver’s license, passport or military ID card.

Plaintiffs have argued the law hits elderly and poorer voters, including minorities, hardest because they are less likely to have identification. They contend the measure is used by Republicans to suppress voters who typically align with Democrats.

The legislation has been in effect since 2011 despite the legal challenges.

Ramos said the law had met criteria set by the U.S. Supreme Court to show intent that included its discriminatory impact, a pattern not explainable on other than racial grounds, Texas’ history of discriminatory practices and the law’s unusually swift passage.

Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, one of the plaintiffs, said the ruling showed other states that discriminatory laws would not stand up to legal scrutiny.

“This is a good ruling that confirms what we have long known, that Texas’ voter ID law stands as one of the most discriminatory voting restrictions of its kind,” she said.

In a shift from its stance under former President Barack Obama, the U.S. Justice Department dropped a discrimination claim against the law in February. The department said that the state legislature was considering changing the law in ways that might correct shortcomings.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Supreme Court rejects Texas appeal over voter ID law

Supreme Court building

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal by Texas seeking to revive the state’s strict Republican-backed voter-identification requirements that a lower court found had a discriminatory effect on black and Hispanic people.

The justices let stand a July 2016 decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found that the 2011 Texas statute ran afoul of a federal law that bars racial discrimination in elections and directed a lower court to find a way to fix the law’s discriminatory effects against minorities.

There were no noted dissents from the high court’s decision not to hear the case from any of the eight justices, but Chief Justice John Roberts took the unusual step of issuing a statement explaining why the case was not taken up, noting that litigation on the matter is continuing in lower courts.

Roberts said that although there was “no barrier to our review,” all the legal issues can be raised on appeal at a later time.

A special 15-judge panel of the New Orleans-based appeals court ruled 9-6 that the Texas law had a discriminatory effect and violated the U.S. Voting Rights Act. The judges were divided differently on other parts of the ruling.

The appeals court directed a federal district court to examine claims by the plaintiffs that the law was actually intended to be discriminatory, rather than merely having a discriminatory effect.

A hearing on that part of the case was scheduled for Jan. 24 but has now been delayed following a request from President Donald Trump’s administration. While former President Barack Obama’s administration had backed the challenge to the Texas requirements, the Trump administration could change course.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

Missouri lawmakers override gun, voter ID vetoes

Handguns for sale

By Kevin Murphy

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (Reuters) – Missouri lawmakers pushed through bills on Wednesday eliminating the need for permits to carry concealed weapons and requiring voters to show a photo identification before casting a ballot, overriding Democratic Governor Jay Nixon’s vetoes of the bills.

Both votes by the Republican-controlled state House and Senate reached the two-thirds majority required to enact legislation over the governor’s veto.

The weapons bill abolished a state law requiring a permit, training and background checks for people who want to carry a concealed weapon in the state.

The House voted 112-41 to override Nixon’s veto and the Senate voted 24-6.

Supporters of the bill said it will make the state safer by allowing more residents to carry firearms in self-defense, while still banning certain criminals and mentally incompetent people from having a gun.

In vetoing the bill in July, Nixon said the measure struck an extreme blow to sensible safeguards against gun violence.

Earlier on Wednesday, the state Senate voted 24-7 and the House 115-41 to override Nixon’s veto of a bill requiring voters to produce a government-issued ID instead of less official identification such as a utility bill or bank check.

The bill would not take effect until 2017, after this year’s presidential election, and only if voters in November pass a state constitutional amendment in support of the new law. That is necessary because the Missouri Supreme Court ruled 10 years ago that such a statute violated the existing state constitution.

Courts in recent months have blocked voter ID laws passed in several states by Republican-led legislatures after civil rights groups argued the measures were discriminatory against poor and minority voters.

In Missouri, voters without a photo ID can still vote if they sign an affidavit swearing that they lack any type of identification. However, election officials can take their picture, and steps must be taken to get a photo ID for later use, with the state covering the cost.

Supporters of the bill said it will help prevent voter fraud.

“Why not have more certainty in the election process?” Republican Representative Justin Alferman, the bill’s main sponsor, said in a statement before the vote.

Opponents had argued that the ID requirement places an undue burden on young, minority and low-income voters who tend to support Democratic candidates.

“Putting additional and unwanted barriers between citizens and their ability to vote is wrong and detrimental to our system of government as a whole,” Nixon said in explaining his veto.

(Editing by Steve Gorman and Simon Cameron-Moore)

Court denies North Carolina motion to stay decision on voter ID law

election worker checking IDs

(Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court issued an order on Thursday denying North Carolina’s motion to stay the court’s decision last week striking down the state’s voter ID law.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said staying its ruling now “would only undermine the integrity and efficiency of the upcoming election.”

On Friday, the court ruled that the North Carolina law, which required voters to show photo identification when casting ballots, intentionally discriminated against African-American residents.

Attorneys for the state in a written motion earlier this week asked the court to put its ruling on hold while the state appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court and seeks to overturn the decision ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.

The court’s move to strike down the state’s voter ID law was a victory for rights advocates that will enable thousands of people to vote more easily and could boost Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s support in the state going into the election.

The decision by the U.S. appeals court also canceled provisions of the law that scaled back early voting in the potential swing state, prevented residents from registering and voting on the same day, and eliminated the ability of voters to vote outside their assigned precinct.

The order noted that North Carolina officials already said they could conduct early voting at Board of Election offices for each county, in line with the ruling.

“Finally, we observe that our injunction merely returns North Carolina’s voting procedures to the status quo prevailing before the discriminatory law was enacted,” the order denying a stay said.

(Reporting by Eric Beech in Washington and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Eric Walsh and Diane Craft)