After news came down today that the Obama administration had successfully blocked a Texas voter ID law from going into effect Greg Abbott, the Texas Attorney General, took to twitter to announce he was suing Eric Holder and the Department of Justice. The Texas Attorney General also released this statement on his website today:
“The Justice Department’s decision to deny preclearance to Texas’ Voter ID law is no surprise given the Obama Administration’s denial of a similar law in South Carolina. In anticipation of this decision, the Texas Attorney General’s office already filed legal action in January seeking judicial preclearance with the court system. The U.S. Supreme Court has already held that Voter ID requirements are constitutional and nondiscriminatory, and several other states–including Georgia, Indiana, Kansas and Wisconsin–are allowed to require photo identification to vote. Texas should not be treated differently and must have the same authority as other states to protect the integrity of our elections.”
“Since 2002, the U.S. Department of Justice has prosecuted more than 100 defendants for election fraud. During the same period, election fraud investigations by the Texas Attorney General’s Office have resulted in 50 convictions. Those cases include a woman who submitted her dead mother’s ballot, a paid operative who cast two elderly voters’ ballots after transporting them to the polling place, a city council member who unlawfully registered ineligible foreign nationals to vote in an election that was decided by a 19-vote margin, a Starr County defendant who voted twice on Election Day, a Harris County man who used his deceased father’s voter registration card to vote in an election, an election worker who pled guilty after attempting to vote for another individual with the same last name, and a Hidalgo County man who presented another voter’s registration card and illegally cast that voter’s ballot on Election Day.”
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