U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder originally said that some 600,000 Texans lacked a voter I.D. and therefore would be disenfranchised by the Texas voter I.D. law. The Department Of Justice’s lawyers have suddenly upped that number greatly, now claiming that 1.4 million otherwise eligible Texas voters don’t have proper I.D.s.
Unfortunately, Holder did not release the figures or the methods that were used to arrive at the newer and much higher figure which holds that one in fourteen Texans have no photo I.D.
Holder went on to say that the large number of Texans with no photo I.D. would be barred from voting under the Texas Voter I.D. Law. He did not mention that the new law requires the state to give photo I.D.s to such citizens for free.
Other states have implemented voter I.D. laws without DOJ involvement, but Texas is a special case. The DOJ has jurisdiction over Texas voting laws because the 1965 Voting Rights Act gives it the power to interdict in the Lone Star State, as well as eight other southern states, because of past discriminatory voting laws.
On Tuesday, Holder appeared in Houston, Texas before the NAACP to decry the Voter I.D. Law. Amusingly, reporters noted that a photo I.D. was required before being allowed to enter the auditorium to hear the AG rail about the evils of photo I.D. requirements.
Few news outlets cared to make an issue of such hypocrisy.
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