Oh, well. Nice try, Texas — trying to prevent minorities from voting. Among other things, the State of Texas tried to impose Voter ID laws because (they said) illegal immigrants were voting. Of course, there was no evidence of this. Just the opppsite — illegal immigrants (as the Fifth Circuit noted) try to AVOID government officials since the last thing they want to do is get caught. So they’re not going to show up at the ballot box.
Texas’ new voter ID law would have hurt poor people. 21.4% of people making under $20,000 did not have a valid ID to vote. The Justice Department had argued that the Texas law, considered one of the toughest voter ID measures in the country, would prevent as many as 600,000 voters from casting a ballot because they lacked one of seven forms of approved ID.
This is a remarkable case, because the U.S. Supreme Court actually raised the standard regarding voter ID laws. To win, the Justice Department could not just show a “discriminatory effect”, but rather, a “discriminatory intent”. And apparently, the DOJ succeeded here.
The full opinion is below the fold.
Loading...
Reload document 
Open in new tab