Texas voter ID law goes to court
By Bill Mears, CNN
Washington (CNN) - Texas state officials went to federal court Monday to defend a controversial new voter identification law, dismissing suggestions the requirement would deny hundreds of thousands of people - many of them minorities - access to the ballot.
A weeklong trial kicked off in Washington before a special panel of three federal judges who will decide whether the law, known as SB 14, should be allowed to go into effect. It is one of several legal challenges to voter ID laws around the country.
A key enforcement provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 - known as Section 5 - gives the federal government open-ended oversight of states and localities with a history of voter discrimination. Any changes in voting laws and procedures in the covered areas must be "pre-cleared" with Washington. That provision was reauthorized in 2006 for another quarter-century.
The Justice Department in March rejected the Texas law, passed in 2011, using the state's own statistics to show about 600,000 registered voters there lack a state-issued driver's license or identification card. SB 14 amended an earlier voter identification law.
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I'm Hispanic and I cannot believe people are making such a big deal about the voter ID law. Ask anyone who votes anywhere around the world that when people vote, they need to show their IDs. Just an example, the Mexican elections, they had to show their ID to vote. Ask Greeks, they show their ID to vote, Ask Guatemalans, Salvadorians and they have to show an ID to vote. It is away to verify who is voting. Is not racist. I can believe Hispanics make everything racist. How do the voting places verify who is who when the vote?
It's just a diversion tactic so the democrats can keep their voter base of illegal alien, convicted felons, legal immigrant, and deceased people.