Federal court says Texas can use new voter ID law for November elections
by Cassandra Pollock, Texas Tribune
The state of Texas can use its revised voter ID measure for the upcoming November elections, a divided federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday.
The 2-1 decision, first reported by Politico Tuesday night, came from a panel of three federal judges on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans — and it marks the latest in a series of winding legal battles on whether the state has intentionally discriminated against black and Latino voters through its original voter ID law passed in 2011
In August, U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos tossed Senate Bill 5, which the Texas Legislature passed earlier this year and in some ways softened the previous requirements that Texans present one of seven forms of photo ID at the polls in order to cast a ballot. Ramos said the state's new voter ID law failed to fix the intentional discrimination against minority voters found in a 2011 ID law.
"Not one of the discriminatory features of {the old law} is fully ameliorated by the terms of SB 5," she wrote.
Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2017/09/05/federal-appeals-court-approves-new-texas-voter-id-law/
The Texas Tribune is a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them – about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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