Defending the voting rights of black students in Texas and North Carolina

[struggle4progress]

This week, the League of Young Voters Education Fund intervened in a federal lawsuit brought by the U.S. Justice Department, among other plaintiffs, against Texas for the photo voter ID law it reinstated after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a key provision of the Voting Rights Act with its recent decision in Shelby County v. Holder. That provision, Section Four, provided the coverage formula for jurisdictions that would need to "pre-clear" election changes with the federal government due to histories of racial discrimination, and it included all of Texas and much of North Carolina. Both the Justice Department and federal courts blocked Texas's voter ID law because the state couldn’t prove that it wouldn’t disenfranchise people of color.

But now that the law is back in effect, the League of Young Voters Education Fund, along with the NAACP Legal Educational Defense Fund, is helping sue the state on behalf of Imani Clark, an African-American student at the historically black Prairie View A&M University in Waller County, Texas. Clark has none of the acceptable IDs for voting. She is the student that LYV and NAACP LDF sued on behalf of in the first lawsuit last year that led to a federal court blocking the voter ID law. Her advocates are now arguing that if the law was over-burdensome for her then, then it is no less cumbersome now despite the Supreme Court's Shelby ruling.

"Many of our student members voted in previous elections in Texas using the only form of photo identification they had -- their student IDs -- which are no longer acceptable under Texas's photo ID law," said Christina Sanders, director of the Texas League of Young Voters Education Fund. "Remarkably, while a state-issued student ID will not satisfy Texas's photo ID law, a concealed handgun license will."

"Our clients seek to join this case to illustrate the discriminatory nature of Texas's photo ID measure, and the severe burdens associated with obtaining the limited photo IDs the law permits," said Natasha M. Korgaonkar, LDF assistant counsel. "Our nation's Constitution protects against a law that requires a voter to clear unnecessary hurdles simply in order to vote" ...

http://www.southernstudies.org/2013/08/defending-the-voting-rights-of-black-students-in-t.html

[politicasista]

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