HOUSTON, Texas — The Supreme Court ruled last week that Texas’ Voter ID law will be applied to November’s midterm elections. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg strongly opposes the law and wrote a scathing seven-page dissenting opinion with Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor late Friday night. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court announced that her opinion contained an error — as a result, a rare alteration was made to what Ginsburg wrote.
Ginsburg had originally written that Texas’ voter ID law “may prevent more than 600,000 registered Texas voters from voting in person for lack of compliant identification.” She additionally complained that photo ID cards issued by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs are not an acceptable form of voter ID in Texas — even though they actually are acceptable.
Wednesday’s correction erased a complete sentence from the justice’s dissent, according to Fox News.
The Supreme Court released a written statement on Wednesday that said, “Page 4 of the dissent contained an error. Photo identification cards issued by the U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs, the Texas Secretary of State’s office confirmed, are an acceptable form of photo identification for voting in Texas. Accordingly, the Justice deleted the following sentence from the dissent: ‘Nor will Texas accept photo ID cards issued by the U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs.'”
Texas Governor Rick Perry signed the voter ID rules into law in 2011. The law requires voters to show one of six types of photo IDs. Those on the left complain that the rules discriminate against minorities and “suppress turnout.” They also take issue with the fact that a Texas concealed handgun license is accepted as a valid ID for voting–in their view, this form of ID “shows Republicans are trying to impose obstacles on those who typically vote Democratic,” the Associated Press reported.
As the November midterm elections near, President Obama’s Justice Department and a collection of civil rights groups requested that voters not be asked for the IDs required by Perry’s law. The Supreme Court said no to the emergency request.
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