Rulings may mean voter ID laws won’t impact race
Federal courts have reined in strict voter ID laws in Texas and Wisconsin, while a legal battle continues to rage over North Carolina’s rules mandating showing identification at the polls — even after lawmakers there took pre-emptive steps to soften them.
The court ruling almost certainly won’t be enough for Democrat Hillary Clinton to win fiercely conservative Texas in November, and Wisconsin has been reliably blue enough in recent presidential cycles that the legal setback for its voter ID law may not prove decisive either.
North Carolina could be enough of a swing state that the fate of its election rules may have an impact — but exactly where its voter ID requirements will stand by Election Day remains to be seen.
What is coming into clearer focus is just how hard it could be for Republican-controlled states to enforce tougher ballot box restrictions that energized conservative activists when they were approved in statehouses across the country in recent years.
More than 30 states have some form of voter ID rules. But before this week the measures in only nine — including Texas and Wisconsin — were considered especially restrictive.
Republican statehouses have passed a flurry of voter ID laws in recent years, saying they help safeguard the integrity of the ballot box. But civil rights groups counter that the laws make it harder for poor and minority voters to cast ballots because they tend to support Democrats.
“Courts are starting to recognize that states have taken the ball and run way too far with it in these voter ID requirements,” said attorney Deuel Ross with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which is representing a black student at Prairie View A&M University who challenged the Texas law. College IDs aren’t valid under Texas’ law, but concealed handgun licenses are.
In April, a federal judge in North Carolina upheld much of that state’s sweeping new election rules, including voter ID requirements, shorter early voting periods and the repeal of a measure allowing people to register the same day they vote.
But that decision came after North Carolina lawmakers relaxed their state’s voter ID law to let residents cast ballots even if they lacked proper documentation. If a higher court doesn’t intervene, the election regulations will remain in place in November.
North Carolina’s presidential race could be competitive. Barack Obama narrowly carried the state in 2008 but lost to Mitt Romney four years later.
That won’t be the case in Texas, where Republican Donald Trump remains the overwhelming favorite.