Deal reached to scale back Texas voter ID law for November election News
Deal reached to scale back Texas voter ID law for November election

Texas agreed to a deal [text, PDF] Wednesday that will weaken their voter identification law and allow voters to cast ballots in the November election even if they lack all documents required by the law. The agreement will require Texas to spend at least $2.5 million in the months leading up to the election to increase voter awareness. Voters will now be able to present voter registration cards, birth certificates, utility bills, paycheck stubs and government documents with the voter’s name and address as acceptable forms of ID. Voters will also be required to sign an affidavit stating that they could not obtain one of the required forms of ID. The deal must be approved by a federal judge.

The Texas voter ID law, first passed in 2011, is one of the strictest in the country. The law was blocked by the Department of Justice [official website], which previously had the power to review voting changes in some jurisdictions under a preclearance requirement laid out in Sections 4 and 5 of the VRA. However, when the Supreme Court struck down [JURIST report] Section 4 in 2013, there was no longer a basis for enforcing the requirement in those jurisdictions. Texas lawmakers announced their plans to reenact the voting law hours after the Court’s decision. In October 2014 a district court ruled [JURIST report] that SB 14 violates the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the US Constitution and filed a permanent injunction [JURIST report] against its enforcement days later. However, an appeals court temporarily reinstated the law, stating that the upcoming elections were too close to make a change and the Supreme Court permitted [JURIST reports] the law to be enforced. In March, the court agreed [JURIST report] to reconsider Texas’ voter identification law before the entire court, as opposed to a panel of just three judges. That month, the League of United Latin American Citizens and Congressman Marc Veasy, along with other plaintiffs, filed an application [JURIST report] with the Supreme Court, asking the Court to vacate a stay that allowed the voter ID law to remain in place during the 2014 midterm elections. The Court did not vacate the stay, but stated that if the Appeals Court did not make a ruling in this case by July 20, then the parties could seek relief from the Supreme Court.