Posted on 07/05/2011 1:11:38 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
WASHINGTON — Sixteen Democratic senators want the Justice Department to look into whether voting rights are being jeopardized in Texas and other states that require photo identification in order for people to vote.
The lawmakers wrote Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday to express concern that millions of voters do not have a government-issued ID - particularly older people, racial minorities, low-income voters and students.
The senators say the photo ID requirements have the potential to block millions of eligible people from exercising their right to vote.
Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said the department is monitoring, as it routinely does, this type of legislative activity in the states.
"We urge you to protect the voting rights of Americans by using the full power of the Department of Justice to review these voter identification laws and scrutinize their implementation," the senators said in the letter to the attorney general.
The 16 senators include.......
"Many of these laws effectively disenfranchise thousands of eligible voters," Bennet said in a statement.
The senators are seeking vigorous enforcement of the Voting Rights Act and federal civil rights law, which bars different standards from being applied to individuals within a jurisdiction. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act gives the Justice Department significant authority to review laws before they are implemented in states with a history of discriminatory voting practices. Three states subject to Section 5 - Georgia, Texas and South Carolina - require a photo ID in order to vote. Texas and South Carolina enacted their laws last month.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
Or buy their liquor.
Yes it would, even here in Tennessee....lord lord lord.......I might even cry...................tears of joy!
But Texas is much larger geographically. Some counties are bigger than some of the smaller eastern states.
If anybody deserves to have a concern about a “history of voting rights discrimination”, it’s the Democrats since they’re the ones with that in their history.
EXACTLY!
It didn’t seem to bother Dems that were members of the KKK!
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