Voter Photo I.D. Laws A Burden To 1 In 10 Voters Who Lack A Photo I.D.

During the 2011-12 legislative sessions, states enacted an unprecedented number of laws restricting access to voting. Voter ID laws are the most common type of restriction. Ten states — Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin8 — now have restrictive voter photo I.D. laws. A new report released by the Brennan Center for Justice within New York University finds that these new laws create an obstacle to voting for more than 10 million eligible voting age citizens who do not have a photo I.D.

Many American citizens lack the documentation these laws require. In fact, more than 1 in 10 voting-age citizens do not have current, government-issued photo ID. Some populations lack these documents at even higher rates: 25 percent of African-Americans, 16 percent of Hispanics, and 18 percent of Americans over age 65 do not have such ID. Data supplied by Texas and South Carolina also show that poor and minority voters are substantially less likely to have the kind of photo ID these states require.

Of course, 9 in 10 Americans do have photo IDs. These documents are used to drive cars, board airplanes, enter government buildings, and purchase various consumer products. Accordingly, many Americans might find it difficult to understand how so many of their fellow citizens lack such basic documentation. They might also assume that it must be relatively easy for these citizens to get photo ID. After all, all states with restrictive voter ID laws provide some way for voters to obtain a free one. However, making the ID itself free does not address the significant obstacles that can make it difficult for Americans who lack the required photo ID to obtain one. Many of these voters do not have a car and will have to rely on public transportation — where it exists — to travel to a far-away government office. That office may be open only a few hours a week, and rarely on weekends or in the evening. Voters may have to miss work or arrange for childcare to make the trip. And even if they can make it there, they may not be able to afford the costly supporting documentation — such as birth certificates or marriage licenses — required to apply for photo ID.

The Brennan Center report describes the burden on Americans who must obtain government-issued photo ID to comply with restrictive voter ID laws. The study demonstrates that many rural, urban, poor, and minority voters must overcome substantial obstacles in order to retain their right to vote.

Read the full Brennan Center report.

I.D. Laws Signal Need for New Voting Rights Act

From Roll Call, by Norman Ornstein

Who will be able to vote in this year’s pivotal presidential and Congressional elections? That is a key question, and the answer will be shaped by the wave of new laws in states designed to curb and suppress voting in the name of combating voter fraud that has repeatedly been proved to be virtually nonexistent.

Since 2010, 11 states, almost all dominated by Republicans, found the time and exerted the effort to pass voter ID laws, all in the ostensible name of fighting the terror of voter fraud.

It took the Majority Leader of Pennsylvania to show that voter fraud is not exactly the only motivator — in the Keystone State, a measure was designed to enable presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney to win by cutting nearly
9 percent of voters from the rolls.

Actually, state Rep. Mike Turzai (R) was not the first elected official to commit embarrassing truth when discussing voter ID laws. In New Hampshire, the Republican state Speaker told a tea party gathering that he supported the state’s voter ID law because it would decrease student voting, and: “They’re foolish. Voting as a liberal, that’s what kids do.” What a surprise that in Texas, a concealed weapon permit is acceptable for voting, but a state university-issued student ID is not.

Most of the new voter ID laws make it very hard for people, especially the poor, minorities and elderly, to get acceptable photo IDs when they don’t have them. Older voters who don’t have birth certificates or other supporting documents required to get the photo ID have to pay to get them — and in some Catch-22 cases, they can’t get birth certificates without photo IDs. In Texas, the rural poor who lack IDs could have to drive 100 miles or more to find a place to get one, and most do not have cars. Attorney General Eric Holder has been criticized by the Wall Street Journal for calling this a new poll tax, but he is right — it is an onerous burden on poor people who don’t drive and don’t fly in order to be able to vote, a burden that does not exist for most of us.

Read the full story @ Roll Call.

Video: Pres. Obama's Campaign Stops In Texas

C-Span: Pres. Obama Luncheon Remarks in San Antonio
C-Span: Pres. Obama Campaign Stop in Austin

Pres. Obama speaks at Austin Music Hall


Part 2: Pres. Obama speaks at Austin Music Hall


Part 3: Pres. Obama speaks at Austin Music Hall

Jack Ternan Facebook/Twitter Town Hall

Ask Texas Senate District 8 candidate Jack Ternan your questions by posting on Jack’s Facebook wall (facebook.com/jackternan) or tweet Jack @ternanforsenate with hashtag #askJack. Thursday, July 19, 8PM-9PM

Use the Google map to see if you live in Senate District 8

View Texas State Senate District 8 in a larger map

Texas Democratic Party Voter Empowerment Project

The Voter Empowerment Project (VEP) is a new project of the Texas Democratic Party designed to educate and empower Democratic voters.

The VEP will help voters through all aspects of the electoral process, from registration to casting a ballot that counts for the candidates of their choice.

Follow the Texas Democratic Party's Voter Empowerment Project on Twitter @TxDemVote and Like on Facebook.

More:

• Texas Voter Photo ID FAQ
• Protecting The Right To Vote And Empowering Voters
• The Real Voter Fraud Behind Photo ID
• Why Millions of American Voters Have No Government Issued Photo I.D.

Texas Voter Photo I.D. Law Fate Rests With D.C. Circuit Court Judges

The Texas Voter Photo I.D. case currently before the federal Washington D.C. Circuit Court will decide whether Texas can enforce its year-old voter photo I.D. law. That federal court five day trial started last Monday, before a three-judge panel composed of D.C. Circuit Judge David Tatel, and District Court Judges Rosemary Collyer and Robert Wilkins. The trial concluded with closing arguments last Friday.

During closing arguments Judge Robert L. Wilkins asked the lawyer for Texas if the state’s voter photo I.D. law would force some people to travel more than 100 miles to get the documents required for a photo identification. “How does that impact your argument?” asked Wilkins. “Isn’t that unduly burdensome?” John Hughes, the state’s attorney, said Texans in rural areas are used to driving long distances. “People who want to vote already have an ID or can easily get it,” he said. The exchange highlighted the key dispute in this federal court trial.

What a minute -- If you don't have currently dated driver's license (to vote) you probably don't own a car to drive. And, if you don't have a driver's license or car, you're not going to drive 100 miles to the state driver's license bureau, after first not driving someplace else to get your original (or notarized copy) birth certificate, to get a government-issued photo ID. Huh?

New Voter Photo I.D. Law Requirements

All IDs must be unexpired or expired no earlier than 60 days before the election. Acceptable identification includes:

• A driver’s license, election ID certificate, or personal ID card issued by the Department of Public Safety (an election certificate issued to a person 70 years or older does not expire);
• U.S. military ID card that contains the person's photograph;
• U.S. citizenship certificate with a photograph;
• U.S. passport; or
• A license to carry a concealed handgun.

Student IDs and Military Veteran IDs will NOT be accepted in Texas for purposes of identification for voting.

The issue is whether the 2011 law violates the federal Voting Rights Act by making it harder for minorities to cast ballots. Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department or a federal court is required to pre-clear laws affecting voters before they go into effect in jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination -- and that includes Texas. Texas has the burden at trial to prove that its voter photo ID law, signed into law by Gov. Perry last year, does not have the purpose or effect to deny a minority citizen the right to vote.

Much of the debate during the trial last week focused on the issue of exactly who would be affected by it. The burden is on Texas to convince the three judge panel that the voter ID law is not discriminatory. The State of Texas argues that there is no evidence, statistical or otherwise, that the voter photo I.D. law is discriminatory. Judge Tatel, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia seemed skeptically of the argument that the law will not adversely impact voters. Particularly, poor rural minority voters.

“The record tells us there is a subset of registered voters who lack ID,” said Tatel, who was appointed in 1994 by President Bill Clinton. “We have to think about the economic burden and the fact that minorities are disproportionately poor.”

Tatel added that the record showed that minorities in Texas are more likely than whites not to have cars and to live up to 120 miles away from the closest place to get voter ID documents.

Under the Texas law, the minimum cost to obtain a voter ID for a state resident without a copy of his birth certificate is $22. While the “Election Identification Certificate” needed to vote is free, the state legislature voted down proposed legislation to allow people to get identification documents, needed to obtain the "free" voter I.D., free of charge.

In his closing argument, U.S. Department of Justice (USDOJ) lawyer Matthew Colangelo said that the Texas law will disenfranchise more than one million African American and Hispanic voters and “is exactly the type of law” that Congress had in mind when it passed the Voting Rights Act.

During the week long trial, the three judge panel heard testimony from lawmakers, professors, civil rights activists, election lawyers and statisticians over the estimated number of people who could be adversely affected. The expert testimony given by witnesses for state of Texas contended that few if any voters lack one of the required photo I.D. cards, while USDOJ witnesses testified that up to 40 percent of registered voters in some rural south Texas counties lacked photo I.D. Now, it is up to the three judge panel to decide.

The judges say they will decide the case by Labor Day. However the three judge panel rules, the losing party is expected to appeal — and that appeal will go straight to the Supreme Court of the United States, bypassing an appeals court.

Democratic Candidate Meet-And-Greet On July 25

The Richardson/North Dallas Democratic Club will host a Democratic Candidate Meet-and-Greet at Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse in Richardson on Wednesday, July 25 from 5PM-7:30PM. (map)

This is a great opportunity to meet one-on-one the Democratic candidates running for local office.

Candidates will include:

• Katherine Savers McGovern, Candidate for US Congressional District 32
• Jack Ternan, Candidate for Texas Senate 8
• Rich Hancock, Candidate for House District 102
• Tonya Holt, Candidate for 5th District Court of Appeals Place 11
• Penny Phillips, Candidate for 5th District Court of Appeals Place 5
• Larry Praeger, Candidate for 5th District Court of Appeals Place 12
• David Hanshen, Candidate for 5th District Court of Appeals Place 9
• Lois Parrott, Candidate for State Board of Education, District 12

Take the opportunity for some one-on-one time with the candidates and come out to Sonny Bryan's Smokehouse! (1251 W Campbell Rd Ste 240, Richardson, Texas 75080-2973)

Please contact 469-443-8680 with any questions.

Vice President Biden Fires Up the NAACP

From The Root by Cynthia Gordy

The speechifying continued at the NAACP Annual Convention in Houston as Vice President Joe Biden took the podium on Thursday.

Biden was pitch-hitting for President Obama, who taped a brief video for the convention (and who will appear in person at the National Urban League's annual conference later this month). Despite Obama's physical absence, Biden used his speech to forcefully defend his policies that have affected African Americans. And where the president probably would have been more congenial, his VP came out swinging.

Vice President Joe Biden addresses the 103rd NAACP Annual Convention in Houston Texas

"He passed the Affordable Care Act, a goal strived for by presidents starting with Teddy Roosevelt," he said to applause from the audience -- a sharp contrast to their loud, sustained disapproval over Mitt Romney's vow to them on Wednesday to repeal the health care law.

"He cut $100 billion from the federal debt over the next 10 years, providing access to affordable health care to 30 million Americans, 8 million black Americans who would never have had insurance."

On the notion of putting convictions before politics, Biden touted the president's stimulus bill and auto-industry bailout as tough decisions from the president that were unpopular but right. "He was right, saving a million jobs and creating 200,000 jobs in the automobile industry," he said. "General Motors now leads the world again, and Chrysler is the fastest-growing company in America."

... Biden closed his remarks by outlining the president's views on civil rights. In a hushed, sober tone, he asked the NAACP audience to reflect on their organization's history.

"Remember what this at its core was all about. It was about the franchise," he said before raising his voice to a shout. "It was about the right to vote! Because when you have the right to vote, you have the right to change things! And we -- the president and I, and Eric [Holder] and all of us -- we see a future where those rights are expanded, not diminished! Where racial profiling is a thing of the past! Where access to the ballot is expanded and unencumbered! Where there are no distinctions made on the basis of race and gender in access to housing and lending!"

He argued that Romney, who has, for example, supported voter-ID laws, sees a future in which voting is made harder -- and asked the crowd to imagine what a Romney Justice Department would look like.

"Imagine the recommendation for who is likely to be picked as attorney general or the head of the civil rights division, or those other incredibly important positions at Justice," he said. "Imagine what the Supreme Court will look like after four years of a Romney presidency. Folks, this election, in my view, is a fight for the heart and soul of America."

Read the full story @ The Root.

Obamacare Is No Longer So Unpopular

Yesterday, Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilbero Hinojosa said,

Two days after Rick Perry said he would turn down billions of federal dollars that would boost our economy and help insure millions of Texans, Congressional Republicans have scheduled their thirty first vote to repeal your health care rights.

Today Republicans like Quico Canseco and Pete Sessions are voting to give lifetime guaranteed government health care to other Members of Congress while they take away health care rights from their constituents. They should be ashamed!

Republicans propose to further hurt sick people by going back to the days when people with pre-existing conditions couldn’t get health care at any price. They propose to hurt our seniors by re-cutting the donut hole in Medicare part D and forcing them to pay more for their prescriptions.

They propose to hurt young people by shoving young adults off their parents’ policies. They care about no one but themselves. They propose to hurt millions of Texans and Americans by reinstating lifetime caps on health benefits—which pretty much assure that a catastrophic disease means you die bankrupt.

The Atlantic: Obamacare Is No Longer So Unpopular:

One of the most accurate polling outfits in the country found this week that President Obama's signature achievement is no longer unpopular with the majority of the country.

The Affordable Care Act, according to a Washington Post/ABC News survey, is now backed by 47 percent of Americans, up from 39 percent in April 2012. Opposition to the law in the wake of the Supreme Court decision upholding it is also down, from 53 to 47 percent.

As well, "just one-third of all Americans favor repealing the legislation in its entirety or in part," a number that's been pretty consistent in these polls since 2010. The Republican-controlled U.S. House yesterday made its 33rd failed attempt to repeal part or all of the law.

Romney has made "repeal and replace" into a campaign mantra, promising to undo the law. But that vow is a promise to his base voters and to partisans rather than an appeal to the majority of the country: "Thirty-eight percent of Americans consider Romney's support for repeal a major reason to vote for him, compared with 29 percent who say it is a major reason to vote against him."

The top-line conclusion The Post put out is that opinion on the law remains deadlocked, which is very much the case. But another way of looking at it is that support or opposition to the law is increasingly partisan, which is what pretty much every survey shows, including the Post's most recent poll.

One of the first bills brought to the floor for a vote after Republicans took over control of the House of Representatives in January 2011 was the repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care (Obamacare) Act of 2010.

When the DBN wrote about that January 19, 2011 vote to repeal Obamacare we included a partial list of health insurance industry reforms that Republicans want to repeal. The list is given here, again, after the "more" jump.

Texas’ Decades Long Fight Against Voting Rights

From Color Lines, by Brentin Mock

Earlier this week, Attorney General Eric Holder declared in his address to the NAACP national convention in Houston what many voting rights advocates had been saying for months: That the photo voter ID law passed in Texas is a poll tax. Determining whether voter ID laws are as unconstitutional as poll taxes won’t be up to him, though. That honor goes to the U.S. Supreme Court justices who lately have been signaling they may be ready to gut the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

What this means is that a legal challenge to a voter ID law in Texas could be the trigger for the demise of the constitutional act that made it possible for people of color to vote in much of the country. Rightwing pundits have all but conceded this week’s US District Court hearing over Texas’s voter ID law to the Department of Justice.

When the Voting Rights Act finally passed in 1965, made possible by the Smith v Allwright SCOTUS decision 20 years earlier, it once and for all banned any instrument, law or policy that would prevent anyone from voting based on race or color. Texas has been fighting back ever since.

When Texas was designated as a Section 5 state due to discrimination against Latinos, it grew increasingly defiant of the Voting Rights Act. According to a report by the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, “Voting Rights in Texas 1982-2006,” only one state challenged Section 5 in court more than the Texas in that time period—and that’s Mississippi. From 1982 to 2006, Texas registered at least 107 Section 5 objections. Meanwhile, during that same time period, Texas lead the nation in several categories of voting discrimination, including Section 5 violations. Further, from the MALDEF report:

“Texas had far more Section 5 withdrawals, following the DOJ’s request for information to clarify the impact of a proposed voting change, than any other jurisdiction during the 1982-2005 time period. These withdrawals include at least 54 instances in which the state eliminated discriminatory voting changes after it became evident they would not be precleared by the DOJ.”

In other words, at least 54 times in 25 years, Texas had to back down from an effort to restrict the vote—thanks to the power granted the federal government under the Voting Rights Act. That power may soon be removed by the Roberts court.

The VRA enforcement represents an imposition of the federal government on state sovereignty, according to many Texas state officials today. Gov. Rick Perry said that DOJ’s enforcement of VRA in South Carolina, for instance, represented a “war” on states rights. The current state attorney general, Greg Abbott, has sued the federal government 24 times since he took office in 2004 over a number of federal law enforcement measures, not limited to voting rights.

But the same fear of expanding the electorate to people of color that existed in the years after Smith v Allwright seems to have spurred Texas state legislators to create the voter ID law currently challenged in court. During this week’s district court hearing, voting rights and race expert Morgan Kousser, of California Institute of Technology, testified that “there was considerable concern” among white state legislators about “losing control” of the legislature. “There is such a correlation between partisanship and race that any bill that has partisan effects would have racial effects,” said Kousser.

Read the full story @ Color Lines.

More:

• Voting Rights Act: The State of Section 5 – ProPublica
• Texas voter ID law can’t take effect - SCOTUSBlog

How The Texas Voter Photo I.D. Law Becomes A Poll Tax For Some

The Texas Voter Photo I.D. case currently before the federal Washington D.C. Circuit Court will decide whether Texas can enforce its year-old voter photo I.D. law. The U.S. Department of Justice contends the law will prevent from 795,955 to 1.4 million registered Latino and African-American voters from casting a ballot in the November General Election.

Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department or a federal court is required to pre-clear laws affecting voters before they go into effect in jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination -- and that includes Texas. Texas has the burden at trial to prove that its voter photo ID law, signed into law by Gov. Perry last year, does not have the purpose or effect to deny a minority citizen the right to vote. That federal court trial started on Monday, before a three-judge panel composed of two district court judges and an appeals court judge.

Originally set to go into effect on January 1, 2012, the Texas Photo I.D. Law (SB 14) would require voters to present one of a limited selection of government issued photo I.D. to election Judges in order to qualify to vote. The accepted forms of currently dated photo identification are: Department of Public Safety issued Texas driver's license, Texas election I.D., or personal identification card; Texas concealed handgun license; U.S. military I.D. card; U.S. citizenship certificate; or U.S. passport. The other forms of personal identification currently accepted for voter qualification could no longer be used under SB 14. SB 14 provides that people who do not have one of the prescribed photo I.D.'s may obtain a "free" Election Identification Card (EIC) from a Dept. of Public Safety (DPS) Driver's License office.

In opening arguments on Monday, Adam Mortara, an attorney for the State of Texas, told the DC Court three judge panel that the vast majority of registered voters already have a photo ID.

"This is a case about Texas' proposed implementation of one of the most popular voting reforms of the last 20 years, a common-sense requirement that when you show up to polls to vote, you prove you are who you say you are with a photo ID," said Adam Mortara of Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott. Mortara said showing a photo ID is part of routine life, from getting into a federal courthouse to riding on an airplane. The DOJ's evidence, Mortara said in his opening statement, is flawed and cannot be used to block the state from carrying out its identification law. Mortara in particular critiqued the work of Stephen Ansolabehere, a professor of government at Harvard University who found Hispanics and blacks in Texas are disproportionately lacking identification compared to white voters.

A DOJ lawyer, Elizabeth Westfall of the department's Civil Rights Division, said in her opening arguments that Texas "is unable to meet its burden" that the voter ID law will not have a retrogressive effect.

Ansolabehere, Westfall said, determined that at least 1.4 million potential voters [approximately 10 percent of all voting age citizens in Texas] lack any form of state-issued ID that is accepted under the law. "In fact, minority registered voters in Texas are two-thirds more likely than white registered voters to lack an allowable state ID," Westfall said. That disparity exists among recent voters and all registrants, she said.

While the State of Texas disputes the fact that up to 1.4 million, or even "just" 795,955 of all voting age citizens in Texas lack any form of state-issued ID accepted under the new I.D. law, there is still no disenfranchisement. Republicans for the state argue there is no disenfranchisement of those without I.D. because anyone can easily obtain a "free" EIC from a Texas DPS office.

The catch is that in order to obtain a “free" EIC from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), a person must take time to travel to a DPS office and present other government-issued documents mandated by the federal Real I.D. Act of 2005. The Federal Real I.D. Act, which turns state driver's licenses into a national identity card, adds additional barriers for everyone, particularly women of every age, to obtain or renew their driver's license. documents needed to obtain a “free" EIC include a passport, or a combination of documents, or a state certified birth certificate, or a certified copy of a court order indicating the applicant’s name and date of birth, and additional documents. Identification documents required to obtain a "free" EIC can cost considerable time and money to obtain. For example, obtaining a birth certificate in Texas costs $22 in order to vote -- and that amounts to a poll tax. For those who do not have a driver's license, and therefore don't own a car, getting to the DPS adds additional financial burdens that may, in some areas of Texas, be insurmountable -- and that, too, amounts to a poll tax.

Texas A Step Closer To Federal Real I.D. Act

As of May, more identification is now required in order to apply for a Texas Driver License, Personal Identification Card, or Election Identification Card, and this new change has brought the state closer to complying with the controversial Real I.D. Act.

Under the new law, applicants must prove they are Texas residents and that they have lived at their residence for at least 30 days. Among the forms of identification and proof of residency are current deeds and mortgages, concealed handgun licenses, medical cards, military documents and school transcripts. For those without photo I.D., under the new Texas voter photo I.D. law, these additional documentation requirements will make it even more difficult to obtain the photo identification they need to vote.

KVII Channel 7
ABC and CW affiliate in Amarillo, Texas

Other states across the country have implemented this law, as well, and many feel it walks the line of invading privacy. They do not want to provide more information than they have to, which is also an issue with the Real I.D. Act.

This act, which has already taken effect in some states, turns driver licenses into national identification cards complete with chips that automatically allow computers to pull up biographic and biometric data.

Many states have been resistant to a national I.D. card and the fact that the federal government could keep track of them.

Though the Real I.D. Act has not yet been fully implemented in the Lone Star State, this additional burdens to obtain a puts Texas one step closer to it.

On May 11, 2005, President Bush signed into law the “Emergency Supplemental Appropriation for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005,” which included the “Real ID Act of 2005.”

The Real ID Act mandates that all fifty states must follow specific security, authentication, and issuance regulations, administered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in issuing driver's license and personal identification cards. On March 4, 2011, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano extended by 20 months (to January 15, 2013) the May 10, 2011 deadline for states to be in full compliance with the federal Real ID regulations. Texas already substantially complies with the Real ID regulations for obtaining or renewing driver's licenses and personal identification cards.

Once the January 15, 2013 deadline has passed, applicants for first time or renewed driver's licenses, personal identification cards, or election identification certificates will need to prove five items of fact to their state driver's license office: full legal name, birth date, citizenship or immigration status, social security number, and proof of permanent residence address.