This is huge:
A federal court on Thursday blocked a controversial new voter ID law
in Texas, ruling that the state failed to show that the law would not
harm the voting rights of minorities.
The three-judge panel in the historic case said that evidence
also showed that costs of obtaining a voter ID would fall most heavily
on poor African Americans and Hispanics in Texas.
Evidence submitted by Texas to prove that its law did not
discriminate was “unpersuasive, invalid, or both,” wrote David. S.
Tatel, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia, in the panel’s 56-page opinion.
The ruling will likely
have political implications in the coming elections. Republicans and
Democrats have been arguing over whether increasingly tough voter ID
laws discriminate against African Americans and Hispanics.
