Today the Justice Department’s civil rights division objected to a new photo ID requirement for voters in Texas on the grounds that many Hispanic voters lack state-issued identification.
Here’s is an excerpt on the report from Reuters:
The state law approved in May 2011 required voters to show government-issued photo identification, which could include a driver’s license, a military identification card, a birth certificate with a photo, a current U.S. passport, or a concealed handgun permit.
The Justice Department said that data from Texas showed that almost 11 percent of Hispanic voters, just over 300,000, did not have a driver’s license or state issued identification card, and that plans to mitigate those concerns were incomplete.
“Hispanic registered voters are more than twice as likely as non-Hispanic registered voters to lack such identification,” Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez said in a letter to the Texas director of elections outlining the objection.
This is the second state voter identification law blocked by the Obama administration, which earlier objected to a strict new law in South Carolina that it prevented from taking effect. South Carolina then sued in federal court seeking approval of its law.
The Twitter reaction to DOJ’s move has been overwhelmingly negative:
https://twitter.com/#!/NeilJEdmondson/status/179242218475884544
https://twitter.com/#!/JayAyS/status/179242763441799168
https://twitter.com/#!/MarcBrumbaugh/status/179242873294831616
https://twitter.com/#!/WEMcCormick/status/179242359979122689
https://twitter.com/#!/MadonnaWarwick/status/179243593645559808
https://twitter.com/#!/BlackstoneCr8iv/status/179245879520280577
https://twitter.com/#!/ranKismet/status/179246373894500352
On the other hand, a minority of Twitter users celebrated the DOJ’s move:
https://twitter.com/#!/morgmeneshets/status/179245704772993026
https://twitter.com/#!/garak99/status/179246769463504896
Join the conversation as a VIP Member