Court upholds voting law impacting some college students
A federal appeals court has revived a 2021 Texas law that set new residency requirements for voter registration, including one that civil rights groups alleged essentially blocked college students from signing up.
The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court's ruling that blocked most of the law for creating an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote.
The Texas Attorney General's Office, which intervened in the case to defend the law, did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday's ruling.
The judges found the groups, LULAC and Voto Latino, failed to prove they had endured harm as a result of the law and therefore lacked standing.
“It's unfortunate that we have such a conservative, antivoting rights 5th Circuit,” LULAC President Domingo Garcia said. “We've been representing Latinos of Texas since 1929. This is the first time in recent memory a court has ruled we do not have standing. We believe we were right on the merits that this is a voter suppression bill that should be overturned.”
Garcia added that the group plans to request a rehearing by the full court, which is often considered one of the most conservative courts in the country.
Senate Bill 1111, which took effect Sept. 1 of last year, requires that anyone using a P.O. Box to register must also provide documentation of a physical residential address, such as a photocopy of a driver's license.
It also prohibits voters from establishing or maintaining a residence “for the purpose of influencing the outcome of a certain election.”
Lastly, it bars voters from establishing a residence in a place they have not inhabited or at a previous residence, unless they live there at the time of the designation and intend to remain there.
“It's a recognition of the obvious that they really didn't have standing and they are not harmed because all (the bill) does is simply say: Don't register at an impossible address,” said state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, who authored the bill.
LULAC and Voto Latino had argued that the law had forced
them to divert resources toward educating the public about the changes and it chilled their speech when it came to what they could say about how to register to vote.
Garcia said LULAC spent more than $1 million to counteract election laws like SB1111, but the judges sided with Texas in finding that the group failed to show how such expenses were directly related to that law, as several election laws were passed in 2021.
U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel mostly left the P.O. Box provision intact, reasoning that the state has an interest in preventing voter registration fraud and the request for verification of a physical address is not a severe burden. A response to that request with a new address, Yeakel clarified, should be considered a change of address with no further action needed.
Yeakel had enjoined the two other provisions.
He argued that there are valid reasons for changing an address that may influence the outcome of an election but not in a malicious way, such as “voting, volunteering with a political campaign, or running for an elected office.”
The final provision relating to where a person lives or intends to stay would make registration near impossible for college students, senators or other groups of people who live in multiple locations throughout the year, Yeakel said.
“The burden imposed is ‘severe,’ if not insurmountable,” Yeakel wrote. “Such an insurmountable burden is not easily overcome … And the possible repercussions are not just complete disenfranchisement, but also criminal liability.”
Election administrators
have expressed concerns about the provision. According to the suit, Dallas County Election Administrator Michael Scarpello said he was “not entirely clear on how to answer the questions posed to (Dallas County) by some student voters,” which has generated “a sense of frustration from the voter and sometimes confusion.”
El Paso County Election Administrator Lisa Wise stated she was not
“able to really give (students) the information that they would need” to determine where to register.
Bettencourt, the author of the bill, said it was not aimed at college students, who he said can still register at college or at home with no problem.
“I couldn’t figure out what the judge was worried about, quite frankly,” he said. “Nobody’s going to use — at least I don’t believe anybody would use — that to knock college students off (the rolls).”
The bill was mostly meant to target situations like in Harris County, he said, where he says there are nearly 5,000 people registered with P.O. boxes as their physical and mailing addresses.
Counties are barred from making any changes to the voter rolls within 90 days of an election, per federal law. However, after the upcoming Nov. 8 election, registrars can begin sending out address verifications required under SB1111 to people whose registered addresses are P.O. boxes or otherwise somewhere a registrar believes is not their current address.
“We study this: When people use private P.O. boxes, half of them leave and move out of the county anyway,” Bettencourt said. “It’s just time to get that practice back to what it should be. You register where you actually have a residence.”