5th Circuit approves Texas voter ID law

Washington Times:

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that Texas’s new version of its voter-ID law can go into effect, rebuking a lower court judge for trying to block the law and delivering a significant victory to voter-integrity advocates.

The original law passed earlier this decade had been blocked after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded both its purpose and effect was to punish minority voters.

But the state legislature went back and made changes, and the 5th Circuit, in a 2-1 ruling, now says the new version cures what ailed the previous one.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton hailed the ruling.

“The court rightly recognized that when the Legislature passed Senate Bill 5 last session, it complied with every change the 5th Circuit ordered to the original voter ID law,” he said. “Safeguarding the integrity of our elections is essential to preserving our democracy.”

The new law includes a longer list of ID options that are acceptable for voting purposes, allows people to use expired identification for even longer and requires mobile dispensaries to dole out election identification documents to those who might not otherwise have a valid ID for voting purposes.
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That is an example of good legislative craftsmanship.  The changes actually tracked the language in the appeals court decision.  That made it difficult to claim it did not pass muster.  Those who still opposed the law did so based on an animus toward voter ID's in general and not based on the prior court decision.  I think the opposition to voter ID's are based on bad faith and it is mainly because they want Democrats to be able to cheat.