Supreme Court allows Texas voter ID law to stand

[Luiz 4,253]

The Supreme Court Friday denied an advocacy group’s request to temporarily block a Texas voter identification law from being enforced during the 2016 general election.

The Campaign Legal Center had asked Justice Clarence Thomas to stay the law, which two lower courts found discriminated against minority voters, while it’s under review by the full bench of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The group is afraid there won’t be a final decision in the case in time to stop the law from being enforced during 2016 general elections.

http://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/278159-supreme-court-allows-texas-voter-id-law-to-stand

[Morphine Prince 109,683]

Honestly I feel like this opinion won't go well with people on this site but I don't see why some think this is so wrong? 

You need to obtain a license to drive (which is an ID), you need an ID to buy alcohol, open a bank account, applying for public assistance, etc. So many things require an ID.... voting is just one more. It works to prevent voter fraud.

And then people will say "But how much voter fraud is going on?" or "poor people can't get ID's" etc. You need some sort of ID for many things as I already stated. 

In Texas there are 7 acceptable forms of Photo ID that can be used when voting: 

Texas driver license issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS)

Texas Election Identification Certificate issued by DPS

Texas personal identification card issued by DPS

Texas license to carry a handgun issued by DPS

United States military identification card containing the person’s photograph

United States citizenship certificate containing the person’s photograph

United States passport

 

 

[Luiz 4,253]

Absentee voters tend to be older and whiter than in-person voters. In 2012, nearly half, or 46 percent, of mail-in voters were aged 60 and older, and more than 75 percent were white, according to an analysis by Michael McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida who tracks demographic trends in voting. Older white Americans generally are more likely to vote Republican.

African-Americans, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic, are less likely to use mail-in ballots. Although they make up about 13 percent of the population, only 8 percent voted by mail in 2012.

Either way, most states — nine — of the 16 that have passed stricter voter ID laws since 2010 only allow voters to mail in ballots if they have an excuse, such as an illness, disability or old age.

Who Is Impacted by Voter ID Laws?

Laws that require photo ID at the polls vary, but the strictest laws limit the forms of acceptable documentation to only a handful of cards. For example, in Texas, voters must show one of seven forms of state or federal-issue photo ID, with a valid expiration date: a driver’s license, a personal ID card issued by the state, a concealed handgun license, a military ID, citizenship certificate or a passport. The name on the ID must exactly match the one on the voter rolls.

African-Americans and Latinos are more likely to lack one of these qualifying IDs, according to several estimates. Even when the state offers a free photo ID, these voters, who are disproportionately low-income, may not be able to procure the underlying documents, such as a birth certificate, to obtain one.

In Texas, for example, challengers to the law cited an African-American grandmother who could not afford the $25 to purchase her birth certificate to get an ID, and an elderly African-American veteran and longtime voter who was turned away at the polls in 2013 despite having three types of ID, because none qualified under the new law.

And new research from the Government Accountability Office, an independent agency that prepares reports for members of Congress, suggests that voter ID laws are having an impact at the polls. Turnout dropped among both young people and African-Americans in Kansas and Tennessee after new voter ID requirements took effect in 2012, the study found.

Six of the 16 states that have passed voter ID laws since 2010 have a documented history of discriminating against minority voters. All but one of those states’ laws were put in place after the Supreme Court overturned a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that required them to seek approval from the Justice Department for any voting-law changes.

Courts have so far blocked three ID laws. A state judge struck down Pennsylvania’s law earlier this year, determining that it discriminated against low-income and minority voters. Two weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked Wisconsin’s from taking effect for this election, and last week, a state court declared Arkansas’ voter ID law unconstitutional. Lawsuits are currently pending against similar laws in North Carolina and Alabama, though they won’t be decided before the November elections.

Voter ID laws have all been sponsored by Republicans and passed overwhelmingly by Republican legislatures. A conservative U.S. circuit judge, Richard Posner, in a recent scathing critique of these laws, calling the expressed concern about fraud a “a mere fig leaf” and that they instead “appear to be aimed at limiting voting by minorities, particularly blacks.”

“There is only one motivation for imposing burdens on voting that are ostensibly designed to discourage voter-impersonation fraud,” Posnerwrote, “…and that is to discourage voting by persons likely to vote against the party responsible for imposing the burdens.”

Obenshain, the Virginia senator, said his law wasn’t about keeping voters from the polls. “There’s only one class of people who are going to be discouraged from voting, and that’s fraudulent voters.”

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/why-voter-id-laws-arent-really-about-fraud/

 

basically, blacks and browns need to learn that there is such a thing as absentee voting. i do it and its very convenient  we're ignorant and they're taking advantage of it. when trump wins i bet this ends pretty quick  fun