Texas Appealing To U.S. Supreme Court In Quest To Retain Controversial Voter ID Law

AUSTIN, TX -- The Texas attorney general said this week he would appeal a previous ruling by an appeals court that ruled the state's draconian voter identification law to be in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.

In a statement on Tuesday, Paxton said he will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to allow Texas to retain its Voter ID law in place. Three wees ago, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the state requirements run counter to voting safeguards outlined in the Voting Rights Act.

The stringent state requirements to vote have yielded much controversy since the guidelines' implementation in 2011, some critics viewing the rules as an attempt to squelch the vote from minorities and other groups that traditionally vote Democratic.

One example cited by critics is the allowance of a gun license -- documentation largely possessed by a right wing voting bloc -- as an allowable form of ID to vote, but not other forms of identification. In justifying their stringent requirements, the conservatives leading the state government have pointed to a need to protect from voter fraud.

But studies have shown that voter fraud is negligible in Texas, so infinitesimal that it is statistically non-existent. One examination yielded just four cases of proven voter fraud from 2000 to 2014 — a handful of cases among 72 million votes, or one in 18 million.

Stated another way: The likelihood of voter fraud is less likely in the state is less likely than the chances of being struck by lightning, according to the National Weather Service.

Still, Texas is forging ahead with its appeal, predicating that decision on the same alarms about voter fraud -- despite the fact the perceived scourge has been widely debunked.

“To protect the integrity of voting in the state of Texas, our office will appeal the Voter ID ruling of the Fifth Circuit to the United States Supreme Court,” Paxton’s communications director, Marc Rylander, said in a prepared statement.

Following the appeals court ruling, a U.S. District Court judge approved an agreement to allow more forms of identification to be permitted at the ballot box for people to vote.

State Sen. José Menéndez, a Democrat in San Antonio, joined other critics of the state's Voter ID in urging state lawmakers to let the appeals court ruling stand after the ruling.

"The millions of dollars spent defending this unconstitutional law could have helped shore up Child Protective Services, replaced textbooks for Texas classrooms, or helped thousands of indigent seniors," Menéndez said. "I'm calling on General Paxton to stop chasing windmills and face the reality that this law discriminates against voters. It's all money flushed down the toilet on a 'solution' looking for a fictitious problem."