A federal judge has weakened the Texas voter ID law while the U.S. Court of Appeals suspended a ruling that eliminated parts of Wisconsin’s law.
Activists have gone after voter laws recently as the presidential election nears. They insist the poor and minority voters somehow cannot obtain an ID.
A judge scrapped the Texas law in July and forced them to go back to the table “to revamp its voter identification rules, finding that they disenfranchised minority voters.” They eventually agreed on this deal:
Under the deal, a voter whose name appears on the voting roll but who lacks the appropriate ID could cast a ballot after showing an item such as a valid voter registration card or a government document with the voter’s name and address.The person would have to sign a declaration swearing that he or she has had a reasonable difficulty that prevented obtaining one of the accepted forms of photo identification.
Texas Attorney General will appeal the case, but explained “the state reached the deal due to the court’s time constraints.”
Now, up in Wisconsin, the Court of Appeals “suspended a July 19 ruling by a federal judge that struck down parts of” the state’s voter ID law:
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order Wednesday staying an injunction a district court judge issued last month allowing voters without legally-approved photo identification to vote by signing an affidavit saying they faced a “reasonable impediment” to getting such an ID.The three-judge appeals court panel said that approach was too lax, even if some accommodation was necessary for voters who could not get identification with reasonable effort.”Instead of attempting to identify these voters, or to identify the kinds of situations in which the state’s procedures fall short, the district court issued an injunction that permits any registered voter to declare by affidavit that reasonable effort would not produce a photo ID—even if the voter has never tried to secure one, and even if by objective standards the effort needed would be reasonable (and would succeed),” the appeals court panel wrote.
The Justice Departments claims, though, “that the district court’s decision is likely to be reversed on appeal and that disruption of the state’s electoral system in the interim will cause irreparable injury.”
In March 2015, the Supreme Court refused to review the case that challenged Wisconsin’s voter ID law after activists couldn’t believe the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law.
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