15 states endorse Texas’ voter ID statute in court

AUSTIN — Fifteen Republican-controlled states are wading into the contentious court fight over Texas’ voter ID law, arguing in a legal brief that similar laws around the country already have been upheld by the courts.

A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that Texas’ law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls violated parts of the federal Voting Rights Act.

The court’s full bench has agreed to reconsider the case at a May 24 hearing.

Ahead of oral arguments next month, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller is leading a coalition of GOP-led states supporting Texas’ law. In a recent court filing, Zoeller’s office argues that a ruling against the measure could create “uncertainty for states attempting to enforce or enact voter ID laws.”

“This, in turn, would leave state voter ID laws in a constant state of flux,” Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher writes in an amicus brief.

Aside from Indiana, the states included on the amicus are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Indiana’s voter ID measure was upheld in 2008 by the U.S. Supreme Court, which rejected arguments that the law imposed undue burdens on minority groups less likely to have photo identification required to vote. In the amicus filing, Indiana argues “there are no meaningful differences between” its voter ID measure and the one passed by Texas lawmakers in 2011.

Wisconsin and Georgia also had their respective measures upheld in court. Earlier this week, a federal judge upheld North Carolina’s voter ID law.

In its filing, the coalition of GOP-led states noted that a federal appeals court used the Supreme Court ruling in Indiana’s case to uphold Wisconsin’s law, which had been found by a lower court to have disenfranchised up to 300,000 voters.

Thirty-four states currently have some kind of voter ID requirement, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Texas’ law, however, generally is regarded as the strictest in the country.

A Corpus Christi federal court found that more than 600,000 voters lack the identification that the state now requires for voting. Critics of the law say it disproportionately impacts minorities and poor Texans, who are far less likely to possess photo identification.

The states say they are within their rights to enact voter ID laws to help in “deterring fraud, maintaining public confidence in the electoral system, and promoting accurate record-keeping.”