Texas voter ID law reverses civil rights movement accomplishment
By Daniela Sirtori Cortina
Published Sept. 4, 2013
... Sure, Texas DPS identification cards are “free,” but the documents associated with their processing do cost money and might be hard to find. One of the valid supporting documents is a birth certificate, which costs $22 to obtain or $30 for an “expedited” one, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. Obtaining a birth certificate is — by a sizeable margin — the cheapest option available ...
The requirements don’t end there. You must present at least two of the previously mentioned documents, or one of those plus two other supporting documents, which include concealed handgun licenses (as of last December, only about 600,000 of the more than 26 million Texans have one of those, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety) and federal inmate identification cards, among others. The quest for more documentation continues.
After gathering all required papers, you have to make it to an ID office that might be far from you, because as Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas E. Perez noted last year, 81 of Texas’ 254 counties do not have operational driver’s license offices. If your application is approved, you now have a valid voter ID and are able to fill out your voter registration application. You have probably spent more than $30 and may have traveled out of your county, and even though you haven’t cast a ballot yet, Texas’ strict photo ID laws have already impacted your path to the polls.
Voter ID laws that might result in out-of-pocket expenses never mention race or ethnicity, but they were passed at a time when nearly 25 percent of Hispanic residents and 24 percent of black residents in the state, but only 8.4 percent of white residents, are poor (according to the 2007 American Community Survey). It would be far-fetched to simply consider those laws an unfortunate coincidence that just happens to disproportionately affect minority voters ...
http://www.themaneater.com/stories/2013/9/4/texas-voter-id-law-reverses-civil-rights-movement-/
= new reply since forum marked as read
