After a couple significant loses, the Texas AG won a court ruling allowing the state to proceed with a rule regulating third party voter registration activities.
From the FWST:
Texas can enforce its law regulating third-party voter registration activities while a court ruling blocking the measure is on appeal.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans on Thursday granted a request by Texas to put on hold last month's court order barring enforcement of several provisions of the 2011 law. U.S. District Judge Gregg Costa determined that the law probably conflicted with federal rules and the U.S. Constitution.
The stay will allow enforcement of the 2011 law pending the appeal, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said.
A Federal District court had previously granted an infunction against enforcing the law:
U.S. District Judge Gregg Costa of Galveston ruled that a law that prohibits third-party voter registrars from working in more than one county and another that mandates registrars in Texas be residents of the state violate the First Amendment.
“During the 2011 legislative session, the Governor signed two bills that imposed a number of additional requirements,” Costa wrote in his 94-page opinion. “The result is that Texas now imposes more burdensome regulations on those engaging in third-party voter registration than the vast majority of, if not all, other states.”
The judge also struck down provisions that required deputy voter registrars be paid hourly, that prevented registration certificates from being photocopied and that prohibited completed forms from being mailed in to elections officials. A final judgment must still be rendered, Costa declared. Until then, the laws cannot be enforced.
The suit was filed in February against Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade’s office by Voting for America Inc., the voter registration affiliate of Project Vote, a national nonprofit voter education and advocacy organization.
Click here for the opinion.
The Texas AG had been seeking to overturn the injunction for sometime. The story points out that this change in voting rules had been precleared.
Groups opposed to the law are now seeking to take their complaint to the Supreme Court.
