Texas, Wisconsin Voter-ID Laws Blocked by Court Actions
*This is very big news. A game-changer for the November mid-terms? VL
Wisconsin and Texas, with some of the strictest voter photo-identification laws in the U.S., can’t enforce them before the Nov. 4 elections, as actions from two courts gave a boost to Democrats seeking a higher turnout.
A divided U.S. Supreme Court yesterday blocked Wisconsin’s law, heeding calls from civil rights groups that said hasty implementation would mean widespread confusion. A judge in Corpus Christi said Texas’s alleged goal of preventing voter fraud doesn’t outweigh the discriminatory effect on the poor, blacks and Hispanics.
“The draconian voting requirements” imposed by the law “will disproportionately impact low-income Texans because they are less likely to own or need one of the seven qualified IDs to navigate their lives,” U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos, a 2011 appointee of Democratic PresidentBarack Obama, wrote in yesterday’s ruling.
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