{"id":1115,"date":"2012-03-15T21:24:27","date_gmt":"2012-03-16T01:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=1115"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:24:21","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:24:21","slug":"department-of-justice-rejects-texas-voter-id-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2012\/03\/15\/department-of-justice-rejects-texas-voter-id-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Department of Justice Rejects Texas Voter ID Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Billy Corriher<\/p>\n

<\/em>When Texans vote in the upcoming presidential primary, the federal government wants to ensure they won\u2019t be turned away from the polls for lacking the proper identification.\u00a0 The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday issued a letter rejecting the state\u2019s new voter ID law.\u00a0 DOJ argued the law would disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of minority voters.\u00a0 The letter said the statute cannot be \u201cpre-cleared\u201d under Section 5 of the Civil Rights Act, because it has the effect of denying minorities the right to vote.<\/p>\n

The Texas law requires voters to present a drivers license, a state identification card, or a concealed-weapon permit.\u00a0 Neither a student ID, federal government employee ID, tribal ID, nor a veterans ID is acceptable. DOJ analyzed data provided by Texas to determine that the law would disproportionately impact Latino voters: \u201cAccording to the state\u2019s 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.\u201d
\n
\nSection 5 requires jurisdictions\u00a0with a history of voter discrimination obtain \u201cpreclearance\u201d from DOJ or the D.C. District Court before implementing any change in voting.\u00a0 States cannot implement changes that have the \u201cpurpose\u201d or \u201ceffect\u201d of disenfranchising minorities or voters who do not speak English.<\/p>\n

Eight states\u00a0implemented<\/a>\u00a0new or stricter voter ID laws last year, and legislation is pending in 32 states. Florida has implemented shorter early voting periods and tougher registration requirements. With scant evidence to back them up, Republican supporters warn of voter fraud. Civil rights\u00a0advocates<\/a>\u00a0say these laws will disproportionately impact students and minorities \u2013 two groups that heavily favored President Obama in the 2008 election.<\/p>\n

Some\u00a0claim<\/a>\u00a0DOJ\u2019s decision is political, that it is designed to help Obama in November. This argument implies\u00a0 either that the president aims to engage in massive voter fraud to win Texas, or that the voter ID law would hurt Obama at the polls (by disenfranchising his supporters). These charges of politicization are hypocritical.<\/p>\n

The lack of voter fraud leaves one explanation: these laws are intended to disadvantage certain voters. A Wisconsin state court judge recently ruled unconstitutional his state\u2019s new voter ID law:\u00a0 \u201cVoter fraud is no more poisonous to our democracy than voter suppression . . . .\u00a0 Indeed they are two heads on the same monster.\u201d\u00a0 That the move was a political one, not a racial one, does not excuse the law.\u00a0 The Texas state legislature may have only meant to disenfranchise Democrats, but it also disenfranchised groups protected by the Civil Rights Act.\u00a0 The D.C. District Court will ultimately rule on the preclearance issue.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court may still curtail the scope of Section 5.\u00a0 In 2009, the Court\u00a0declined<\/a>\u00a0to rule on the constitutionality of preclearance, while noting \u201cserious\u201d concerns.\u00a0 The Court described preclearance as an infringement on state authority over voting.\u00a0 While this was justified in 1965, the Court noted that minorities\u2019 voting rates have since improved dramatically.\u00a0 The Court said some of the preclearance provisions are based on outdated information.<\/p>\n

Though it recently reauthorized the statute, Congress must ensure the Act is addressing current problems.\u00a0 The political branches should not leave the job of defining voting rights to\u00a0the Court.\u00a0 These new voting laws illustrate why preclearance is still relevant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Billy Corriher When Texans vote in the upcoming presidential primary, the federal government wants to ensure they won\u2019t be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-hZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}