Today, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) refused to grant pre-clearance to the Texas Voter ID law approved by the Texas Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry last spring. The law requires voters provide a valid government issued form of photo identification (driver’s license, state issued voter identification card, U.S. passport, concealed weapon permit, military identification) in order to cast a ballot at the polls.
Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, Texas, along with a group of eight other mostly Southern states, as well as a select number of county and municipal jurisdictions in other states, must obtain pre-clearance from either the DOJ or the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. for any change to its electoral laws that might affect the voting rights of ethnic/racial and linguistic minorities.
The DOJ argued that at least 600,000 Texas registered voters would at present not be able to vote under the current legislation, and that minorities were significantly more likely to fall into this population group than Anglos.
Further, the DOJ highlighted the reality that the monetary and time costs of obtaining the “free” election credential offered by the state of Texas to voters lacking another form of valid photo identification were in fact quite costly. A large proportion of these registered voters lacking photo identification do not have cars, making it difficult for them to reach the closest Department of Public Safety (DPS) office. Close to one-third of Texas counties do not have a DPS office, while the remaining majority generally have only one, very few of which are open in the evening or on weekends. Lastly, many of thee individuals lack the types of identification that one would need to present in order to obtain the “free” Texas voter identification card, documents that are costly in time and money to obtain. The overarching conclusion of the DOJ analysis is that the Texas Voter ID law would increase the barriers to voting, and in its implementation would increase the barriers for minority voters in a disproportionate manner.
One final observation made by the DOJ, as well as by Democratic opponents of the law last spring, is that the state of Texas has failed to demonstrate the actual need for the legislation — that is, of a non-trivial number of actual instances of voter impersonation at the polls. In fact, the Voter ID law does nothing to address the most prevalent form of electoral fraud in Texas, which involves the illegal use of absentee ballots.
The issue is now in the hands of the U.S. District Court in D.C., which will hold a status conference on Wednesday on the Texas Voter ID law and on how to proceed. Depending on what happens in the U.S. District Court, the final arbiter in this dispute may very well end up being the U.S. Supreme Court.
What is crystal clear at this point is that the Texas Voter ID law will not be in force for the May 12 local elections, May 29 primary elections and July 31 primary runoff elections.
In the event the law receives pre-clearance from the U.S. District Court this spring or summer, there exists a relatively remote chance voters will be required to present photo identification when voting in November, but it is equally likely the law will end up before the Supreme Court, and therefore will not be in force.
Mark P. Jones is the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy’s fellow in political science as well as the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies and chair of the Department of Political Science at Rice University.