Texas Democratic Party: Moving Texas Forward

Submission Reference: 2011-2775

October 11, 2011

Mr. T. Christian Herren, Jr.

Chief, Voting Section
Civil Rights Division
Room 7254 – NWB
Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
Washington, DC 20530

Dear Mr. Herren,

Recently we obtained a copy of the spreadsheet the Texas Secretary of State’s office included with their response to your request for additional information regarding SB 14 (the photo voter id legislation).  In my previous letter I pointed out that based on their unwillingness to even try to provide an estimated breakdown by race of voters without I.D., it’s clear that the State of Texas has no intention of fully complying with your Department’s request. Now that I’ve seen the actual data they sent, not only is it evident that they don’t intend to fully comply, but they also left out the most important bit of information from the spreadsheet they submitted.  That piece of information being the percentage of those registered voters who lack photo I.D. who are Hispanic.

Your Department has probably already done these calculations and has noticed the results.  However, we know you’re busy, so we thought we’d save you the trouble if not.  Following is a table showing all Texas counties where the percentage of the registered voters without I.D. according to the SOS who are Hispanic is over 60%.  The spreadsheet in its entirety is attached so that you can see the calculations for the rest of the counties.  The column at the far right was not included in the Secretary of State’s submission.  All that the SOS included was the percentage of registered voters without I.D. who are Hispanic as a percentage of the total number of registered voters in the county.  For example, in Jim Hogg county, that percentage would be 11.04%, which doesn’t seem like a lot.  However, when those same Hispanic voters are calculated as a percentage of the total registered voters without I.D. (basically the total number of voters likely to be disenfranchised), we find that of all the voters in Jim Hogg likely to be disenfranchised, 92.73% of them are Hispanic.  That’s a huge difference and paints a totally different picture of the impact of this voter I.D. law on Hispanic voters than the spreadsheet originally submitted by SOS.

County by county we can see the difference.  This is just more shell games and obfuscation from the SOS to try to hide the fact that this law is discriminatory.  The numbers plainly show that in at least 46 Texas counties, over half the voters who do not have I.D. are Hispanic.  Further, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, only 25% of eligible voters in Texas are Hispanic.  The total of Hispanics likely to be disenfranchised because they do not have I.D. is almost 29%.  Clearly the legislation has a disproportionate impact on Hispanic voters.  If the SOS would provide the estimates by race that your office requested, I believe that we would see that a disproportionate percentage of those being disenfranchised are also African American and Asian.

It is our contention that not only has the State of Texas not met the burden of proof required under the Voting Rights Act for this legislation to be pre-cleared, there is concrete evidence that the legislation does in fact disproportionately abridge the right to vote of minority voters and therefore pre-clearance should be denied.

Thank you for your attention to this matter and I look forward to hearing the Department’s decision soon.

Respectfully,

Boyd L. Richie

Chair, Texas Democratic Party

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• CLICK HERE for the table showing all Texas counties where the percentage of the registered voters without I.D. according to the SOS who are Hispanic is over 60%

• CLICK HERE for the spreadsheet in its entirety so that you can see the calculations for the rest of the counties.  (The column at the far right was not included in the Secretary of State’s submission.  All that the SOS included was the percentage of registered voters without I.D. who are Hispanic as a percentage of the total number of registered voters in the county.  For example, in Jim Hogg county, that percentage would be 11.04%, which doesn’t seem like a lot.  However, when those same Hispanic voters are calculated as a percentage of the total registered voters without I.D. (basically the total number of voters likely to be disenfranchised), we find that of all the voters in Jim Hogg likely to be disenfranchised, 92.73% of them are Hispanic.  That’s a huge difference and paints a totally different picture of the impact of this voter I.D. law on Hispanic voters than the spreadsheet originally submitted by SOS.)