Texas voter ID law rejected by federal court

WASHINGTON -- A federal court has rejected a Texas law that would require voters to present photo IDs to election officials before being allowed to cast ballots in November.

A three-judge panel in Washington ruled unanimously Thursday that the law imposes "strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor" and noted that racial minorities in Texas are more likely to live in poverty.

The decision involves an increasingly contentious political issue: a push, largely by Republican-controlled legislatures and governors' offices, to impose strict identification requirements on voters.

Republicans are aggressively seeking the requirements in the name of stamping out voter fraud.

Democrats, with support from a number of studies, say fraud at the polls is largely nonexistent and that Republicans are simply trying to disenfranchise minorities, poor people and college students -- all groups that tend to back Democrats.

In the Texas case, the Justice Department called several lawmakers, all Democrats, who said they detected a clear racial motive in the push for the voter ID law. Lawyers for Texas argued that the state was simply tightening its laws. Texas called experts who demonstrated that voter ID laws had a minimal effect on turnout. Republican lawmakers testified that the legislation was the result of a popular demand for more election protections.

The judges in the Texas case are Rosemary Collyer, an appointee of President George W. Bush; Robert Wilkins, an appointee of President Barack Obama; and David Tatel, an appeals court judge appointed by President Bill Clinton.

Tatel, writing for the panel, called the Texas law "the most stringent in the nation."