Listen
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says he will take the fight over the state's controversial voter ID law to the Supreme Court. The move comes four weeks after the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck the law down.
"To protect the integrity of voting in the state of Texas, our office will appeal the voter ID ruling of the Fifth Circuit to the United States Supreme Court," says Marc Rylander, a spokesperson for the attorney general's office.
Supporters of the state's voter ID law, including Attorney General Paxton, argue it's necessary to prevent voter fraud. Opponents counter that the law discriminates against racial minorities. That's a position with which a majority of the Fifth Circuit judges agreed.
"This whole idea about this being this massive voter fraud has been proven, in every sector, to have been wrong," says Gary Bledsoe, president of the Texas NAACP and one of the plaintiffs' attorneys, "so we're really disappointed that this matter's not going to stop at the Fifth Circuit level."
Last week, a federal judge in Corpus Christi approved an interim plan to govern Texas voting through Election Day in November. Under the plan, voters would still need to provide some form of identification at the polls. But those who lack a photo ID would have a wider range of alternatives, such as a bank statement or a current utility bill.
