Federal Judge Strikes Down Texas Voter ID Law
Texas voter ID law was specifically designed to discriminate against minorities a Federal judge ruled Monday.
For the second time, a federal judge has ruled that the 2011 voter ID laws in Texas were specifically designed to affect minority voters.
“This is some evidence of a pattern, unexplainable on grounds other than race, which emerges from the effect of the state action even when the governing legislation appears neutral on its face,” the judge said.
Judge Nelva Gonzales previously called the measures a “poll tax” against black and latino voters in the Texas.
The judge ruled that the 2011 voter ID law was intended to discriminate “despite its proponents’ assertions that it was necessary to combat voter fraud.”
“Upon reconsideration and a re-weighing of the evidence in conformity with the Fifth Circuit’s opinion, the court holds that the evidence found ‘infirm’ did not tip the scales,” Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos wrote in her ruling.
According to the New York Times, “The judge, Nelva Gonzales Ramos of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, had previously made a similar ruling, but after Texas appealed her decision, a federal appellate court instructed her to review the issue once more.”
The Fifth Circut Court of Appeals had asked Judge Ramos to reconsider her initial ruling and in her revised ruling on Monday Ramos said, “Upon reconsideration and a reweighing of the evidence in conformity with the Fifth Circuit’s opinion, the court holds that the evidence found ‘infirm’ did not tip the scales,” Judge Ramos wrote in her ruling on Monday.
