Appeals Court Looks Again At Texas Voter ID Law

by Jacob Sanchez and John Reynolds

The Big Conversation

The ongoing legal challenge to Texas’ law requiring photo ID at the polling place took another potentially significant step Wednesday.

Six months after a three-judge appeals court panel ruled the law violated the Voting Rights Act, the full U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will take up the case, the Tribune’s Jamie Lovegrove reported.

A date hasn’t been set yet for oral arguments.

Passed in 2011, the law is defended by its supporters as a common sense measure to better secure the voting process. Critics, though, are challenging it as a measure meant to discriminate against Hispanic and African-American voters.

The law’s provisions are in effect and governing elections in Texas while the legal fight winds its way to a conclusion.

Lovegrove noted that one election law expert, Rick Hasen, wrote on Wednesday that the current vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court could end up having an impact on the final resolution of the challenge to Texas’ voter ID law.

“The stakes are especially high because this is a case which could divide 4-4 before the current Supreme Court, meaning what the entire 5th circuit does may be the final word on Texas’s law,” Hasen wrote.

This article originally published by The Texas Tribune.