Analysis: A Missing Piece in the Voter ID Debate

We have a long history in Texas of movements on the right working to disenfranchise poor, communities of color and that's what this piece is about.  But do also consider that this is happening, simultaneously, too: Record 14M Texans register to vote. Folks know quite well that Texas is changing and so racialized politics are part of our landscape.  It's encouraging to see these record numbers of folks registered to vote.  Now, they just have to get out and vote.

All else equal, things are a changin'...

-Angela

Analysis: A Missing Piece in the Voter ID Debate

• by Ross Ramsey
• Oct. 24, 2014
• 140Comments

Republican state officials working to pass a voter photo ID law in 2011 knew that more than 500,000 of the state’s registered voters did not have the credentials needed to cast ballots under the new requirement. But they did not share that information with lawmakers rushing to pass the legislation.

Now that the bill is law, in-person voters must present one of seven specified forms of photo identification in order to have their votes counted.

A federal judge in Corpus Christi has found the law unconstitutional, but the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the state can leave it in place for the November election while appeals proceed.
The details about the number of voters affected emerged during the challenge to the law, and were included in the findings of U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos.

During the 2011 legislative struggle to pass the voter ID law, she wrote, Republican lawmakers asked the Texas secretary of state, who runs elections, and the Texas Department of Public Safety, which maintains driver’s license information, for the number of registered voters who did not have state-issued photo identification.

The answer: at least a half-million.

Continue reading here.