Posted on 10/10/2014 10:45:04 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
AUSTIN, Texas A federal judge likened Texas' strict voter ID requirement to a poll tax deliberately meant to suppress minority voter turnout and struck it down less than a month before Election Day and mere hours after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked a similar measure in Wisconsin.
The twin rulings released Thursday evening represent major and somewhat surprising blows to largely Republican-backed voter identification rules sweeping the nation that have generally been upheld in previous rulings.
Approved in 2011, Texas' law is considered among the nation's harshest and had even been derided in court by the Justice Department as blatant discrimination. Wisconsin's law was passed the same year and has remained a similar political flashpoint.
"We are extremely heartened by the court's decision, which affirms our position that the Texas voter identification law unfairly and unnecessarily restricts access to the franchise," U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement. "We are also pleased that the Supreme Court has refused to allow Wisconsin to implement its own restrictive voter identification law."
U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos of Corpus Christi on Texas' Gulf Coast, an appointee of President Barack Obama, never signaled during a two-week trial in September that she intended to rule on the Texas law before Election Day. But the timing could spare an estimated 13.6 million registered Texas voters from needing photo identification to cast a ballot.
The Justice Department says more than 600,000 of those voters, mostly blacks and Hispanics, currently lack eligible ID to vote.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Why do states not just make voter fraud a serious felony with say a 10 year mandatory sentence for each offense. And then just enforce it...
The reason it’s so wide spread is because there usually is no down side.
Anyone naive enough to still think the USSA is still the USA?
That the Will of the People rules?
That the law of the land is not determined by corrupt, unelected political hacks appointed to lifetime judge jobs, who rule like 3rd World tinpot dictators?
deliberately meant to suppress minority voter turnout
Based on what evidence?
It’s just like the Unconstitutional Bull while quoting from the Bill of Rights or Swiss Chalet menu
How do they get on Obamacare?
How do they collect welfare ,food stamps etc etc
That means you're both racists. < SARC >
Well, there's a work-around solution: move the poll stations to the District Courthouses.
They have registered a bunch more voters in big cities and they need cover to let the all vote plus some if needed.
This just shows how dumb federal judges are. A poll tax?
If there really are 600,000 people without IDs they don't want IDs. They're free to the indigent. Maybe they just don't want to vote. I mean these laws have been on the books for three years now.
We need a government department of Roundtuit. That would help these 600K people get round to it.
These court decisions are preemptive strikes, the courts having no evidence of wrongdoing by the states.
Also note that the only voter-related criteria that the states have amended the Constitution to expressly protect are voting rights based on race, sex, tax status and age as evidenced by the 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th Amendments. In other words, the states have never amended the Constitution to prohibit themselves from requiring candidate voters to show valid photo ID before being allowed to vote.
And speaking of constitutionally protected voting rights, the states have also never amended the Constitution to prohibit themselves from requiring candidate voters to pass a basic constitutional law test before being allowed to vote. Such a test would emphasize the federal government’s constitutionally limited power to tax and spend, and would hopefully keep voters on their guard for federal politicians who promise to support special interest federal government spending programs if elected, but which the feds have no constitutional authority to establish.
Just another example of our clown courts with their clown “judges” tampering with the U.S. elections again. Hey! Their commie ‘RAT massas down at the DNC have given these clowns their marching orders. When the DNC tells their “judges” to jump, they jump!!! Gotta keep that voter fraud going or the ‘RATS will never win an election.
I live in a third world country.
How in the wide world of sports is it that 4.4% of registered voters don’t have ID!? That is absurd on the face of it.
If this country doesn’t get serious about cleaning up elections, it isn’t going to end well, it won’t be pretty.
The wind is at the back of the statists. Law is what Scotus and Obama say it is.
What is currently a creeping police state will accelerate.
The rats have soiled every American institution and are fast criminalizing conservatism.
And we are told to just keep voting.
yes, but didn’t the Supreme Court basically agree with a ruling of their own?
The upsetting thing here seems to be we dont even have 4 votes on the Supreme court to at the very least drag out these decisions.
Am guessing it`s John Roberts that is the culprit, just a all around anti Christian loser it would seem.
We only needed 4 votes to hear the gay marriage cases and this one as well?
Mark Levin should run for President,he is the one that could argue that the Supreme Court is illegally passing laws, and that it was never intended for the court to trump all other branches.
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