Texas Voter ID Law Is Overturned By 5th Court Of Appeals

When Texas Republicans passed the onerous Voter ID law a few years ago, they said their purpose was to stop "voter fraud". We knew that wasn't true. Voter fraud is extremely rare, and in fact, they have been unable to uncover any instances of it that could have been prevented by their Voter ID law.

The truth is that they see the changes that are coming to the state of Texas. In just a very few more years, Whites will be a minority in Texas (and already are a minority in the states school system). Faced with this coming demographic change to the Texas population, the Republicans had a choice. They could either change their policies that discriminated against minorities (and the poor), or they could pass a law to keep as many of them as possible from voting. They chose to keep those people from voting.

The silly law had already been declared discriminatory and overturned by a lower court, but the GOP got a stay of that ruling -- forcing voters to provide ID to vote in the 2014 election. Now a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans has agreed with that lower court. They have decided that the Voter ID law in Texas does discriminate against minorities, and they overturned it.

Unless a stay is issued (by the full 5th Circuit Court of Appeals or the U.S. Supreme Court), Texans will once again be able to vote without presenting anything other than a voter registration card -- and that would apply to both the party primaries and the general election in 2016.

I hope no stay is issued. Voting is one of our most important rights, and no party should be able to prevent any American citizens from exercising that right. This decision will undoubtably be appealed by the state Republican-dominated government. We'll just have to keep our fingers crossed that the full 5th Circuit Court and the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold the right of all citizens to vote.