August 2, 2012

Court enjoins enforcement of new Texas voter registration laws

Here is some great news http://txredistricting.org/post/28584005627/court-enjoins-enforcement-of-new-texas-voter

This afternoon, U.S. District Judge Gregg Costa enjoined enforcement of Texas laws passed in the 2011 legislative session which require that deputy voter registrars be Texas residents and prohibited performance-based compensation for voter registration staff.

The restrictions had been challenged by the non-profit group Voting for America and various other plaintiffs in a suit filed early this year in federal district court in Galveston.

The court rejected claims of Texas that the new restrictions were required to prevent fraud, holding that “f these practices did contribute to fraud, concrete examples of such fraud would likely exist from decades of experience … But no such evidence was introduced for the Court to weigh against the harm to Plaintiffs.”

The court also enjoined enforcement of existing provisions of Texas law which Texas interpreted as banning deputy voter registrars from “accepting or handling applications from residents of counties other than the county in which the person is appointed as a VDR,” finding the requirement unconstitutionally burdensome. ...

This decision will undo the damage done by the republicans in the state legislature as to voter registration