Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the state of Texas under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The complaint was filed in hopes of blocking the state’s polling place Photo ID restriction law, newly re-enacted by TX Attorney General Greg Abbott just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the very heart of the VRA (the Section 4 formula used to determine jurisdictions covered by its Section 5 preclearance requirements for new voting laws) last June.
How did the TX AG respond to the DoJ suit?
Here is the very first line of Abbott’s embarrassing website response to it posted yesterday…
Ya know what else “Voter IDs have nothing to do with”? The absentee ballot fraud committed by the woman cited by Greg Abbott above in the very first line of his response to the DoJ!
Here (courtesy of Ryan Reilly) is the very first page of the indictment against the woman cited by Abbott as a reason why the state needs their polling place Photo ID restriction law. [Red circle added for TX AGs who may have trouble reading their own legal filings]…
Of course, Abbott is similarly misleading — okay, lying — about “Voter IDs hav[ing] nothing to do with race” as well. He knows that very well, of course, since, last year, both the DoJ and a federal court each determined — based on data supplied by the state of TX itself — that, by way of just one example, registered Hispanic voters were anywhere from 46.5% to 120% more likely than registered white voters to lack the type of state-issued Photo ID which would now be required to vote under the TX GOP’s new, racially discriminatory law.
In other words, as the DoJ noted after analyzing the state’s own data and then blocking the law from taking effect last year due to its discriminatory nature (before the law was re-enacted following the horrific SCOTUS decision earlier this summer): “Hispanic registered voters are more than twice as likely as non-Hispanic registered voters to lack such identification.”
Moreover, as to Abbott’s claim that the newly required state-issued Photo IDs “are free to anyone who needs one,” as Ari Berman notes at The Nation:
Remember, those needing to drive “up to 250 miles” to get their “free” ID also need to do so despite not owning a drivers license! Other than that, the cost of the time off work, the cost of gas, and the cost of documents needed to receive one, those Photo IDs “are free to anyone who needs one,” as Abbott lied.
Of course, Abbott has to lie about this stuff because, in fact, polling place impersonation voter fraud (the only type of fraud that can possibly be deterred by such laws) is, unlike absentee ballot fraud, almost non-existent. A report issued last year by a non-partisan news consortium which examined every known instance of election fraud from all 50 states between 2000 and 2010 found just ten (10!) cases of polling place impersonation fraud across the entire nation which might have been deterred by polling place Photo ID restrictions — out of hundreds of millions of votes cast during the same period.
Other than that, of course, “Voter IDs having nothing do with race”, they must be shown at the polling place in Texas in order to magically somehow prevent the absentee ballot fraud Abbott cites, Greg Abbott is an idiot, and the Texas Republican legislators who voted for this bill, and the Republican Governor Rick Perry who signed it, all hate American democracy and will do anything they can to prevent it from happening.
This all from a state and an AG who recently responded to a lawsuit against their Congressional redistricting map — also re-enacted after the Supremes gutted the VRA, and also found to be purposefully discriminatory last year — by literally admitting they did intend to discriminate in drawing it up, but not against minorities, just against Democrats.
For more on similar recent anti-democracy idiocy, please see our detailed coverage yesterday on the state and federal lawsuits now filed against North Carolina in hopes of blocking their similarly discriminatory attempts to stop racial minorities from casting their votes in that state. For those unclear on just how bad the Rightwing SCOTUS majority’s horrific decision was last June when they gutted the heart of the preclearance requirement in the Voting Rights Act — finding, essentially, and incorrectly, that it was no longer necessary — hopefully you’re starting to get the picture by now…
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UPDATE 9/4/2013: It should also be noted that Abbott also lied in his claim that “The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that voter ID laws do not suppress legal votes, but do help prevent illegal votes”. More details on that lie now here…
Great post.
“Greg Abbott is
an idiot[a devious slimebag],…”The sad part is the sheep just keep on electing these crooks. They don’t know any better as they only listen to the right wing hate mongers. Prime example is La republicans thinking Obama had something to do with the late response to Katrina.
It says something that Democrats can’t seem to publicize this and win. But the real enemy is voter turn-off. America simply doesn’t vote. That’s why Republicans win even if they are caught in this stuff, average people are turned off by the sleaze and deceit and just tune out.
Abbott’s claim that the “U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that voter ID laws do not suppress legal votes” reflects another blatant falsehood.
The only Photo ID case that has come before the Supreme Court is Crawford vs. Marion County Election Bd., which entailed an unsuccessful claim that Indiana’s Photo ID law was unconstitutional on its face.
Because the Crawford plaintiffs alleged that the Indiana Photo ID law was unconstitutional “on its face,” they did not offer evidence that would establish that any voter would either be disenfranchised or unduly burdened by Indiana’s Photo ID restrictions. Based solely upon the record before it, the Supreme Court, in Crawford, simply upheld the District Court’s finding that the Indiana statute did not impose an undue burden, while signalling that it would be open to a different result in a future case where evidence might be presented to show that that the law disenfranchised voters or imposed an undue burden.
Abbott’s reliance upon Crawford was expressly rejected in Texas v. Holder by a unanimous three judge panel of the US District Court in Washington DC, which expressly found that the Texas Photo ID statute would result in a disproportionate disenfranchisement of Hispanic and African-American voters.
If Abbott were to make these representations in a court of law, he could be held in contempt. Too bad we can’t hold him in contempt for lying in the court of public opinion.
Ernie @5,
This Supreme Court does not like facial challenges to statutes, preferring “as applied” cases instead:
(PrawfsBlawg). The trend applies not only to election law, but other realms of law too.
Totally disagree 100% with Brad Blog’s point of view.
Well, that’s a very well-reasoned and persuasive argument, Andrew. The evidence you put forth is very impressive and convincing!
They are not idiots. They are incredibly racist, cynical, power-mad elitists; but they are not stupid. They act as if the rest of us are, however. And they just might be right about a near-majority.
Andrew, if you got paid to post that, you had better give the money back
What would Jesus do?
Of course cheat to win like he did on the cross when he tricked Judas to switch places since he betrayed Jesus.
Oh wait Jesus took the loss instead of lowering himself to cheat.
Judas threw down Jesus for money.
One party needs to win to at any cost to keep the PARTY MONEY FLOWING just like Judas.
The other party stands up for the poor, gays, and stands against the banks like Jesus did.