Texas continues its undeclared war on turnout
The state's latest filing in the voter ID lawsuit reconfirms what the critics, including ourselves, have been saying all along that Texas officials would rather limit than encourage turnout.
Apparently, all the state had to do to mitigate a Justice Department complaint was to insert the word "reasonably" into its voter education literature. The state chose instead to fight, incurring the expense and, with the general election looming, the time of having its lawyers draft a rebuttal.
How refreshing it would have been to see the state agree to the Justice Department's demand, in the spirit of helping Texans exercise their legal right to vote. How reassuring it would have been to see mostly low-income and minority voters not be treated by the state as the enemy.
The state's top leaders, all the way up to Gov. Greg Abbott, who engaged this battle when he still was the state's attorney general, would have us believe that in-person vote fraud is the enemy, aided and abetted by President Barack Obama's Justice Department. Don't believe it. Voting fraudulently by showing up at the polls in person is an offense that the state can't prove exists because it practically doesn't.
Read more: http://www.caller.com/opinion/editorials/texas-continues-its-undeclared-war-on-turnout-3c7992d8-110c-5d34-e053-0100007f7bc4-393473631.html