Voter ID Trial starts on Monday, July 9
The trial on SB14 before a panel of the DC Circuit starts on Monday. The Texas Redistricting blog has an update on this trial http://txredistricting.org/post/26649926862/photo-id-trial-starts-monday
Trial on the State of Texas’ request for preclearance of its photo ID law (SB 14) starts Monday in Washington before a three-judge panel.
The trial is expected to last a week, with the panel rendering a ruling by August 31.
The trial will address both the claims that the photo ID law has a disparate impact on African-American and Hispanic voters and that the law was enacted with “a discriminatory purpose: the disenfranchisement of Hispanic and black voters.”
The trial, however, will not address claims by the State of Texas that the preclearance requirements of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act are unconstitutional - an issue the court will take up in separate proceedings only if the court finds grounds to deny preclearance.
If the law is precleared by August 31, the State of Texas has said that it will still have time to implement the law for November 2012 elections.
The Court has scheduled this trial so as to allow some time to implement the law for the November elections. We may not know until August 31 the ruling of the court and may only have a limited time to get ready for dealing with a voter id law. If the Court rules in favor of the State of Texas, we can expect some mass confusion as to the implementation of SB14.
I have briefly looked at the proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law from both the DOJ and the State of Texas. The quality of the work product is clear. The DOJ has 80+ pages of detailed findings and Greg Abbott has less than 20 pages of rather vague and general findings. For example, according to Greg Abbott, one 92 year old lady who does not have a birth certificate would not be prejudiced by the law because she can vote by mail since she is over 65. The Texas Southern students who have out of state drivers’ license but no birth certificates are not prejudiced because they simply need to pay for and get their own birth certificate if they want to vote.
I did not see any discussion of whether requiring someone to pay for a birth certificate would constitute a poll tax. I hope that NAACP or the other litigants will be raising this issue.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Those arguments were made during witness testimony. That and the fact that of the 254 Texas counties about 80 of them do not have a DPS office.
DOJ Texas Voter ID Ruling Is No Surprise Given State’s Faulty ‘Colorblind’ Policies
(snip)
Texas has no driver’s license offices in almost a third of the state’s counties. Meanwhile, close to 15 percent of Hispanic Texans living in counties without driver’s license offices don’t have ID. A little less than a quarter of driver’s license offices have extended hours, which would make it tough for many working voters to find a place and time to acquire the IDs. Despite this, the Texas legislature struck an amendment that would have reimbursed low-income voters for travel expenses when going to apply for a voter ID, and killed another that would have required offices to remain open until 7:00 p.m. or later on just one weekday, and four or more hours at least two weekends.
I'm hoping for a good result for voters - which of course means DOJ winning and GOP/Texas losing.
May the voting rights force be with us!
Witnesses in the photo ID trial
Justice Department and Defendant-Intervenors (in order to be called):
State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer
State Rep. Rafael Anchia
State Sen. Carlos Uresti (by video deposition)
Professor Morgan Kousser
Professor Henry Flores
Lydia Camarillo
Victoria Rodriguez
State Sen. Rodney Ellis
Randall ‘Buck’ Wood
Rev. Peter Johnson
Dr. David Marker
State Sen. Wendy Davis
Dr. Allan Lichtman
Professor Stephen Ansolabehere
Good line up for our side. the other side is listed too, but they're all losers.
Go DOJ!
Politico 7/9/12
Texas voter ID trial opens
(snip)
In March, the Justice Department Civil Rights Division refused to clear the Texas law, known as Senate Bill 14, saying Texas officials had failed to prove that it wouldn’t adversely affect minorities
As the trial got under way in a packed courtroom, DOJ trial attorney Elizabeth Westfall went even further, arguing that the federal government will show racial motivation in Texas’s passage of the law.
“The facts will convincingly demonstrate the discriminatory purpose and effect of Senate Bill 14,” Westfall told the three-judge panel in her brief opening argument in a trial expected to last through Friday.
A lawyer for Texas countered that there’s no evidence of discriminatory intent and that the law is needed to prevent voter fraud.
Go DOJ!
They lie so often that they can't keep their lies straight. So they have to bring in the back benchers or outsource their lies to outside firms so not trip up in their own lies.
I also noticed that the Secretary of State has a new elections director.
(snip)
On cross-examination, Westfall established that Ingram has been in his job only since January and had no prior experience in election administration.
“You’ve never been to a polling place to observe an election?” she asked.
“That’s correct,” Ingram said.
That's very interesting. The prior elections director had been there for a very long time. Wonder if she was just not willing to lie under oath for them.
And all they can point to is alleged voter fraud evidence which has been highly exaggerated. So the rolls are filled with more voters than are age eligible - so frigging what? How many dead people are actually voting? Voter turnout barely breaks 20% and they're worried dead people are voting.
If the problem is getting exact, complete voter registration rolls then there is an answer - it's called universal voter registration. The burden to put all eligible voters and keep up with their name changes and moves is on the government. It keeps the rolls pretty clean and increases voter participation by having the most accurate voting rolls possible. But that's the complete opposite of what republicans want - they want the lowest possible voter participation - so they can stay in power.
Thanks for the trip down zombie voter lane! 
Holder Calls Voter ID Laws ‘Poll Taxes’
Attorney General Eric Holder deviated from his prepared remarks during a speech before the NAACP on Tuesday and called voter ID laws “poll taxes.”
“Under the proposed law, concealed handgun licenses would be acceptable forms of photo ID, but student IDs would not,” Holder said. “Many of those without IDs would have to travel great distances to get them, and some would struggle to pay for the documents they might need to obtain them. We call those poll taxes.”
I agree!
There are some clear differences or distinctions between the Texas act (SB14) and the Indiana law upheld by the SCOTUS. In particular, under the Texas law one can not get a free id without a birth certificate. Justice Stevens approved the Indiana law in part because one could provide alternative documents to get the free id . http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=07-21&friend=nytimes In footnote 18 of Justice Stevens opinion, the fact that the Indiana statute did not require birth certificates was important to the court
Footnote 18
As petitioners note, Brief for Petitioners in No. 07-21, p. 17, n. 7, and the State's "Frequently Asked Questions" Web page states, it appears that elderly persons who can attest that they were never issued a birth certificate may present other forms of identification as their primary document to the Indiana BMV, including Medicaid/Medicare cards and Social Security benefits statements. http://www.in.gov/faqs.htm; see also Ind. Admin. Code, tit. 140, §7-4-3 ("The commissioner or the commissioner's designee may accept reasonable alternate documents to satisfy the requirements of this rule".
There is a good state court case from the Missouri Supreme Court that held that any law that requires one to pay for a birth certificate in order to vote is a poll tax. http://www.advancementproject.org/news/newsletters/democracy-in-action-volume-october-2006/the-missouri-supreme-court-declares-missour
I am hoping that the Department of Justice will be arguing that the Texas act is indeed a poll tax in the trial that is taking place in DC. I think that the facts and law support this position.
This has just been the standard m.o. for Texas under Perry's republican administrations. And anytime they try to take their road show nationally (i.e. Perry's run for presidency) the glaring spot light shows every ugly failure.
Texas continues to be laughed at across the land. Thank you idiot ricky perry!
On the other hand their incompetency is good for voters of Texas and across the land. This case will set some precedent I hope. And no more states subject to the VRA will move any closer than Texas did at trumping up voter fraud to disenfranchise voters.
Let's bury it - burn it at the stake. Along with those political hacks like Christian Adams. 
Talking Points Memo 7/13/12
Judges Seem Ready To Mess With Texas’ Voter ID Law
WASHINGTON — A panel of three federal judges in D.C. posed skeptical questions on Friday about Texas’ voter ID law during closing arguments in a trial about whether the measure is discriminatory.
The panel of federal judges — Bush nominee Rosemary M. Collyer, Clinton nominee David S. Tatel and Obama nominee Robert L. Wilkins — hopes to issue a ruling on the case in “short order,” according to Collyer, who expressed doubts about the findings of Texas’ experts in the case.
John Hughes, a lawyer for Texas, argued in his closing arguments that people who want to vote already have an ID or can easily get it. Hughes argued that if the state’s voter ID law really disenfranchised anyone the D.C. “courtroom would be filled” with Texans who couldn’t obtain voter ID.
In one of the more awkward exchanges, Hughes offered a semi-defense of literacy tests after one judge said that the reason literacy tests were racist years ago was because of inequalities in the education system. The judge asked if it was Texas’ theory that there would be a problem with literacy tests today. Setting aside other laws banning literacy tests and poll taxes, Hughes said he did not believe a literacy test would violate Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
When a judge noted that some voters would have to travel 120 miles to the nearest DMV to obtain a voter ID, Hughes argued that people in those areas had to travel “long distances to do any number of things.” The judge pointed out that people who live more than 100 miles from a courtroom aren’t even allowed to be subpoenaed because it is “unduly burdensome,” but Hughes argued that traveling far distances was a “reality to life of choosing to live in that part of Texas.”
Setting aside other laws banning literacy tests and poll taxes, Hughes said he did not believe a literacy test would violate Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
Get that? The lawyer defending Texas and the voter suppression law does not think literacy tests are a violation of voting rights!
These wingers are nut bags!!!
Texas Voter ID trial: closing arguments
(snip)
Texas officials, he argued, never even tried to find out how many voters or would-be voters would be impacted by the law’s photo ID requirement. Given that the burden of proof rests with the state to show there is no discriminatory intent or effect, he argued, that’s a fatal flaw.
“Even if you have 200,000 people, and you don’t know that the race is, the only conclusion is there is an unlawful racial burden,” Colangelo argued, noting that blacks and Hispanics in Texas are three times more likely to live in poverty.
(snip)
The presiding judge, Judge Rosemary Collyer, noted that the state of Texas bears the burden of proof in the case to demonstrate that the new law does not violate federal civil rights law, either because of an intent to discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity, or by having the effect of tamping down minority voter participation.
Collyer promised a ruling in short order. Lawyers in the case expect that to come by the end of August or even within a month. It’s unclear if Texas officials could implement it in time for the November presidential election if they win, and whichever way the panel decides, the case will almost certainly be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
I think this is looking good for Texas voters and should be another loss for Abbott and the Texas republican mafia crew.
