Voter ID

CURRENT STATUS: The Photo Voter ID law has been denied preclearance! Victory for democracy!

Read the court’s opinion here.

As many of you know, during the last legislative session the Texas Legislature passed a bill (SB 14) that would require voters to show a photo ID when they vote. However, Texas is one of the states subject to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which means that before any changes to voting procedures can be implemented, they must be approved either by the Department of Justice (DOJ) or by a federal court in a process known as “preclearance”. You can read more about the preclearance process as well as the rest of the back story on the Texas Voter ID saga at the links at the bottom of this post.

Instead of waiting for the DOJ to issue an opinion, the State of Texas filed an Expedited Complaint for Declaratory Judgment in U.S. District court asking for the court to grant preclearance to the voter ID bill. You can read that filing here.

The DOJ then filed their objection to the legislation with the court. Several individuals and organizations have intervened in the case. While the TDP is not an intervener, our General Counsel, Chad Dunn, is one of the lawyers representing the interveners.

The trial ended on July 13, 2012. You can read the daily transcripts of the trial using the links below.

July 9 am
July 9 pm
July 10 am
July 10 pm
July 11 am
July 11 pm
July 12 am
July 12 pm
July 13 am

The State of Texas will likely appeal the decision. However, the Secretary of State’s office has previously indicated that if the law were not precleared by August 31, it would not be possible to implement it for the November election.

Check out the following links to see what your Texas Democratic Party has been doing to fight this discriminatory legislation and its effects.

Texas Voter I.D. Background Info