...They can probably save money on signage by just changing the dates on some of the old signs...

I had tweeted over the weekend...

In TX, concealed weapon Photo ID okay to vote, student ID not. Active mililitary ID okay, U.S. Veterans ID not. http://t.co/xgDjX49Auh

— Brad Friedman (@TheBradBlog) October 18, 2014

To which @TexasTruthSerum replied with the photo above and the comment...

@TheBradBlog it's a big mess here, Brad. We are going backwards. pic.twitter.com/alYZPCKh4F

— Texas Blue(s) (@texastruthserum) October 18, 2014

Yes. They are going backwards in Texas. For now.

After a year of legal discovery and a full nine-day trial, the U.S. District Court in Texas found the state's Republican Photo ID voting restriction to be both purposefully discriminatory and an "unconstitutional poll tax" likely to prevent some 600,000 legally registered voters from voting this year. The court also documented the state's decades-long history of purposely attempting to keep certain people away from the polling place with similar disenfranchisement schemes.

Neither the appellate court nor the U.S. Supreme Court disagreed with the District Court. But, rather than simply continuing to enforce the state's previous ID law, as ordered by the District Court --- a law in effect since 2003, which already required that every voter present one of many different types of ID at the polling place when voting, and despite just two convictions for polling place voter impersonation out of more than 20 million votes cast in Texas over the past decade --- the U.S. Supreme Court is now allowing the purposefully discriminatory new law to be used during this year's midterm elections anyway.

Early voting began today (Monday, Oct. 20th) in the Lone Star State. Good luck, Texas. Sorry we failed to protect all of your (previously) legal voters from purposeful discrimination by desperate Republican officials, including state Attorney General Greg Abbott who defended the law in court (and lied about it), even as he campaigned to benefit from it this year while campaigning to be the next Governor of Texas.

                 

Article Categories: Election Reform, Texas, Election Fraud, Rights And Freedoms, Photo ID Laws, Republicans, U.S. Supreme Court, Election 2014