HOUSTON – Today, Texas filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court requesting reinstatement of Texas’ voter identification law. Previously, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled the Texas voter identification law violated the Voting Rights Act. The court found the 2011 Texas law – viewed by many as the strictest in the nation – discriminates against minorities and must be revised before Election Day.
The following may be attributed to Rebecca L. Robertson, legal and policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas:
“To be clear, Attorney General Paxton’s petition asking the Supreme Court to reinstate the Texas photo voter ID law will not affect November’s election. Voters without one of the photo IDs specified in the Texas statute can cast their ballot using other forms of ID. But with Texas’s already abysmally low voter turnout, the real question is why Attorney General Paxton would waste upwards of $3.5 million taxpayer dollars (and counting) defending a law that disenfranchises more than 600,000 eligible voters. Instead of suppressing the vote, we ought to do everything in our power to ensure that every qualified voter participates.”
The ACLU previously filed an amicus brief in Veasey v. Abbott, the case challenging Texas’ voter ID law.
