After Fifth Circuit of Court of Appeals adjudged the Voter's ID law as violative and discriminatory against the Voting Rights Act, a petition by a Texas' attorney general to reconsider the issue has been granted.
The appellate court said in a brief order that it would review en banc the three-judge panel's decision on August 2015 over Texas law SB 14, requiring voters to present government-issued identification at polling places.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement, "Today's decision is a strong step forward in our efforts to defend the state's Voter ID laws. Safeguarding the integrity of our elections is a primary function of state government and is essential to preserving our democratic process. We look forward to presenting our case before the full Fifth Circuit."
The law requires most citizens (some, like people with disabilities, can be exempt) to show one of a handful of forms of allowable photo identification before their election ballots can be counted. Acceptable forms include a state driver's license or ID card that is not more than 60 days expired at the time of voting, a concealed handgun license, a U.S. passport, a military ID card or a U.S citizenship certificate with a photo. The acceptable list is shorter than any other state's.
Fifth Circuit Judge Catharina Haynes, who is one of the judges, opined that the Legislature wished to reduce the risk of in-person voter fraud by strengthening the forms of identification presented for voting.
"It simply reverting to the system in place before SB 14's passage would not fully respect these policy choices-it would allow voters to cast ballots after presenting less secure forms of identification, like utility bills, bank statements or paychecks. One possibility would be to reinstate voter registration cards as documents that qualify as acceptable identification under the Texas Election Code," Haynes further stated.
Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa has previously stated that the ID requirement is harmful to Texas.
"Republicans made it harder for African-Americans and Latinos to cast their vote at the ballot box. We remain confident that the courts will find justice for Texas voters and ultimately strike down this racist and discriminatory law," Hinojosa said in August.
Critics contended that voter fraud is a miniscule problem overblown by Republicans for political purposes. Republicans contended voter fraud erodes the fabric of the democratic process, according to Reuters. Civil rights groups and the U.S. Justice Department had urged the court not to revisit the case. But Paxton argued in a series of appeal filings in August that the plaintiffs had not named any Texans "whose right to vote will be denied or even substantially burdened by maintaining the status quo."
Experts said that more than 600,000 Texans lack such identification, though not all of them have necessarily tried to vote. Those citizens can obtain "election identification certificates" free of charge, but must present a copy of their birth certificate.
Under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, it prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in one of the language minority groups identified in Section 4(f)(2) of the Act.
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