(AP) – this morning
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal court has ruled against a Texas law that would require voters to present photo IDs to election officials before being allowed to cast ballots in November.
A three-judge panel in Washington ruled Thursday that the law imposes “strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor” and noted that racial minorities in Texas are more likely to live in poverty.
The decision involves an increasingly contentious political issue: a push, largely by Republican-controlled legislatures and governor’s offices, to impose strict identification requirements on voters.
The ruling comes in the same week that South Carolina’s strict photo ID law is on trial in front of another three-judge panel in the same federal courthouse. A court ruling in the South Carolina case is expected in time for the November election.
Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
This post was e-mailed to those of us who worked on the Election Certificate (EC) application, the photo identification available for free to those who did not yet have a government ID. I spent quite a bit of my time testing the software for this application.
I find I don’t begrudge the fact at all that the application is not going to be used and my work was for naught. There are too many people who can make it to a local voting booth, but can’t make it to a Driver License office to get an ID, even if it is free. Our state is huge, and DPS has had to close some Driver License offices due to lack of funding and consolidate in places with larger populations. This means that some people have to drive a couple of hours or more to get to where they can get their Driver License. For the folks with no car, no alternative transportation, and no way to get to a Driver License office, the fact that the EC was “free” meant nothing.