Fallout From Texas Voter ID Law in November 2013 Election

According to article by Aviva Shen on December 23, 2013, in the thinkprogress.org, a Texas Judge was almost blocked from voting due to new Texas Voter ID law. Texas legislature enacted a new voter ID law effective November 2013. Proponents of this new voter ID law claim that it was intended to prevent voter fraud in Texas. Opponent of the law have argued that the law was intended to diminish the new emerging minority group (Hispanic), Women who traditionally vote democratic, and the young who were mainly responsible for President Obama’s victory both in the first and the second elections respectively. The Hispanic population, single mothers,  young people are becoming increasingly democratic in the last elections, and could make a huge difference as  to who gets elected in the next several elections in Texas. 

 Texas Legislative branch which is presently controlled by Republicans have recently enacted several provisions into law to check mate this emerging trend; be it cutting days from early voting,  Gerrymandering of legislative districts, to now the famous voter ID law. It is a known fact that Texas has no widespread voter fraud issue; in fact only about four persons have been prosecuted in Texas for voter-fraud related crime in the last 12years. It is sad news that during the last election, in Dallas County alone, over 13,939 voters were caught by this provision according Dallas morning news analysis.  The problem here is that only about 6% of Texas registered voters turned out in the November election. If a turnout of about 59% of Texas registered as was the case in the last presidential  election were to turn out in the next general election, Texas may well  experience long lines at the polls and this could translate to several hundreds of people either not vote or be disfranchised .  It is also documented that both the democratic candidate for Texas governorship  seat, Wendy Davis and her Republican opponent Greg Abbott  were delayed from voting in the last election due to minor disparities on their voter id card and those on their state issued driver’s license cards.

 There were also reports that a great number of minority voters, young people and the elderly population were largely affected by the new provisions. Since Texas has experimented with this new law and the results do not seem to auger well with the intended outcome of the law, this law should be scrapped immediately to avoid potential money costing law suits. Texas Legislators should be prudent enough and realize that this is a bad law and should rescind immediately. Those Texas elected officials who are good at pointing accusing fingers at the federal government when it makes mistake should stand up and defend the voters of Texas from this insane, and backward voters’ provision law. Texas Governor particularly who claims to be advocate of the tax payers of Texans should weigh in on this issue.