Harsh new Texas voter ID law almost blocks woman judge from voting

[Gothmog]

19. The Texas voter id law is stupid but this was not an intended consequence

First, I strongly dislike the Texas voter id law but I base my dislike on the fact that real intent of this law is to steal the vote from the old, the poor and minorities. The current mess with women's maiden name was not an intended consequence of this law but is truly an unintended consequence of the law. The law is really designed to steal the vote from groups who tend to vote for Democrats such as the poor, the old and minorities but due to the stupidity of the design of the law, there is a burden being imposed on women and others with names that do not exactly match the name on the voter rolls.

Second, the Texas Secretary of State is trying to fix this issue. The Secretary of State has a procedure in place where one can vote by signing an affidavit. To vote in Texas under the old law, you have to sign what is called the "combination" form which is an affidavit stating under penalty of law that you are the person listed in the voter rolls and that you are entitled to vote. I have been signing these forms every election since 1976.

My county party chair is Don Bankston (aka Bubba or Mr. Juanita Jean). Don met with our county election office and a representative from the Texas Secretary of State on Wednesday and was told that election judges in Texas are being told to make every effort to let people vote if they have one of the required forms of id and their names or similar names are on the voting rolls. Don and I have both confirmed this with a democrat who is the head election judge for one of the early voting locations. The training for the early voting election judges was consistent with these Secretary of State guidelines.

Please note that Judge Watt was allowed to cast a regular ballot and was not even offered a provisional ballot. This is consistent with the instructions and rulings from the Texas Sec. of State on this issue.

On one hand, I am glad that Greg Abbott and the voter id law is getting bad press. This is a truly horrible law. I want to see the Corpus Christi Federal court overturn this law. On the other hand, I do not want to see the vote suppressed. According to Juanita Jean (I spoke to her this morning), the phone banks for City of Houston Mayor Anise Parker are hearing from women voters that they do not want to vote and have to deal with this hassle. Mayor Parker is a good mayor and I hope that the bad press on this issue does not suppress the vote.

I am convinced that the Sec. of State is trying to fix this issue. Remember that there is litigation pending and one of the effects of this litigation has been to encourage the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Secretary of State office to be less unreasonable.

Please understand that I agree with your complaints. My main concern is that as a practical matter this law's unintended consequence should not prevent any one from voting due to stories about a problem that will not prevent most people from voting. I am more worried about the fact that only 50 Election Identification Certificates (the free ids offered under the Texas law) have been issued so far when there are 1.5 million people who need such ids to vote. Again, the intended effect of this law is to keep the poor, the old and minorities from voting and here the law is working as planned by Greg Abbott and the Texas GOP.

Finally, I am encouraging anyone who has problems voting in Texas to report these problems to the Texas Democratic Party. You file such a report by going to this link http://act.txdemocrats.org/page/s/voter-id