Texas Voter ID Law, Which Accepts Gun Licenses But Not Student IDs, Challenged In Court

[cal04]

On Monday, the Department of Justice and the Texas Legislature will square off in court over Texas’ contentious voter ID law. A three-judge U.S. District Court panel will hear the case, which could challenge the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Texas is one of nine states that must get any changes to their election law cleared by the DOJ under the Voting Rights Act due to a history of discrimination. Texas flunked the test; as Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas E. Perez wrote in his letter to the Director of Elections, “According to the state’s own data, a Hispanic registered voter is at least 46.5 percent, and potentially 120.0 percent, more likely than a non-Hispanic registered voter to lack this identification.”

The law, SB 14, requires voters to show one of a very narrow list of government-issued documents, excluding Social Security, Medicaid, or student ID cards. Gun licenses, however, are acceptable.

The DOJ found that Texas’s SB 14 will “disenfranchise at least 600,000 voters who currently lack necessary photo identification and that minority registered voters will be disproportionately affected by the law.”


http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/07/06/512245/texas-voter-id-law-which-accepts-gun-licenses-but-not-student-ids-challenged-in-court/

[HopeHoops]

1. Good fucking grief.

[goclark]

2. Please let it work

If the Gun Laws count ~ for sure the right to Vote counts!

Zimmerman did NOT need a gun to do his job.

[Igel]

3. Yup.

The bill's language is flawed.

The intent is to make it so only citizens can vote. You need to establish US citizenship to get a TX DL. You need a TX DL to get a concealed weapon permit so while that sounds strange to anybody who thinks that it's just any gun permit, or who dislike the idea of guns in general, it's a reasonable extension. The CWP asserts the existence of the DL, and both bear photographs.

You can use citizenship documents, as well, for ID. The key is to have citizenship and photograph somehow linked.

Thing is, green cards can get you a TX DL, it's just that it says it expires sthe same times as the green card. I didn't see language making an exception for these DLs. Military ID can be issued to non-citizens who are in the military, and similarly I don't see an exception for non-citizens.

Oddly, I'm not sure that a non-citizen can get a CWP, at least legally. I think you need to provide your Social Security number, and that requires more citizenship proof than the mere TX DL (with it's legal alien resident exception).

[derby378]

4. Keep it simple, folks...

Voter ID = Voter Suppression. You just know that a lot of qualified voters are going to get caught in the dragnet, and that don't sit right with me. Just like our DA, Craig Watkins, trying to free all those folks imprisoned in Texas for crimes they never committed.