Tag Archives: WorldNews

For second time, federal judge finds Texas is violating voter registration law

A federal judge found Texas is “legally obligated” to allow voters to simultaneously register to vote with every driver’s license renewal or change-of-address application, and ordered the state to set up a “fully operable” online system by Sept. 23. Credit: Marjorie Kamys Cotera for The Texas Tribune
People in line to cast their vote at a South Austin early voting location on Nov. 2, 2018.

A federal judge found Texas is “legally obligated” to allow voters to simultaneously register to vote with every driver’s license renewal or change-of-address application, and ordered the state to set up a “fully operable” online system by Sept. 23.

Credit: Marjorie Kamys Cotera for The Texas Tribune

A persistent Texas voter, twice thwarted when he tried registering to vote while renewing his driver’s license online, has for the second time convinced a federal judge that the state is violating federal law.

In a 68-page ruling Friday, U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia of San Antonio found that Texas continues to violate the federal National Voter Registration Act by not allowing residents to register to vote when they update their driver’s license information online. It’s the second time Garcia has sided with former English professor Jarrod Stringer. Garcia’s first ruling was overturned on appeal on a technicality.

The National Voter Registration Act requires states to let residents complete their voter registration applications when they apply for or renew their driver’s licenses. But Texas officials have staunchly opposed any form of online registration.

The Texas Department of Public Safety follows federal law when residents visit a driver’s license office in person. But Texans who try to register while using the state’s online portal are instead directed to a blank registration form they must fill out, print and send to their county registrar.

Garcia found that DPS is “legally obligated” to allow voters to simultaneously register to vote with every license renewal or change-of-address application, and ordered the state to set up a “fully operable” online system by Sept. 23. The Texas attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the state is likely to appeal the ruling.

“DPS encourages Texans to use its online services to renew their driver’s license and change their address because it is easier and more convenient,” Garcia wrote. “It cannot, at the same time, deny simultaneous voter registration applications when those online services are used.”

Garcia has said this before. In 2018, he ordered the state to implement what would be its first system for online voter registration. A federal appeals court overturned that order in late 2019 because Stringer and his two co-plaintiffs had ultimately reregistered to vote, and the court decided the case was moot because they were no longer being harmed.

Although the appellate court tossed the case, Judge James Ho of the 5th U.S. Circuit of Appeals wrote in the decision that Stringer’s lost vote was a right he “will never be able to recover.”

“As citizens, we can hope it is a deprivation they will not experience again,” Ho said.

But just 10 days after the admonishment, Stringer again was unable to update his voter registration along with his driver’s license after a move to Houston. Stringer and other frustrated Texans opened the latest chapter of the online voter registration fight by filing a second lawsuit in January.

On Friday, Garcia found that Texas had “offered no factual or legal argument that would justify denying the simultaneous voter registration to which Mr. Stringer is legally entitled.”

“As Defendants have admitted, there are no technological barriers to compliance and corrective measures would not be costly,” Garcia wrote. “Uncontested expert testimony shows that a compliant DPS system would very likely lead to great efficiency, less human error, a massive saving in costs, and increased voter registration.

The issue has become an albatross for Texas Republican officials trying to fend off any form of online voter registration.

At least 1.5 million Texans use the state’s online driver’s license portal a year, according to Stringer’s lawyers, though it’s unclear how many also attempt to reregister to vote. The coronavirus pandemic, which forced Texans to seek out many DPS services online instead of in person, “further underscores that the state has no plausible rationale that I could even imagine to appeal the case,” said Mimi Marziani, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project, which is representing Stringer.

“The court has been incredibly clear now over several years that the state is violating federal law,” Marziani said. “And they have no justification for doing so.”

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Coronavirus: France sees ‘exponential rise’ in cases

Shortly before Friday’s figures were released, Mr Macron said a second national lockdown could not be ruled out if infections spiralled out of control.

However he said his government was trying to avoid the return of restrictions that would set back the country’s fragile economic recovery.

“Containment is the crudest of measures to fight against a virus,” said Mr Macron, urging people to be “collectively very rigorous”.

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The country records 7,379 new cases on Friday as President Macron warns of another lockdown.

Macron Warns Lebanon Risks ‘Civil War’ if Not Helped

Does not give France any “right” to interfere – it is not your colony! W140

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday warned that Lebanon risks a return to civil war if it is left alone to deal with the crisis that followed the deadly Beirut port explosion this month.

“If we let Lebanon go in the region and if we somehow leave it in the hands of the depravity of regional powers, it will be civil war” as well as “the defeat of what is the very identity of Lebanon,” he said.

Texas tells Harris County to halt plan to send all voters applications for mail-in ballots

heavy handed suppression of the vote in Texas
Mail-in ballot application.

Harris County intends to send applications for mail-in ballots to the more than 2 million registered voters in the county.

Credit: Miguel Gutierrez Jr./The Texas Tribune

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Until now, the fight over voting by mail in Texas during the coronavirus pandemic has focused on which voters are eligible to cast an absentee ballot. Now, the battle has progressed to an argument between the state and its most populous county over who can even receive the form to apply for a mail-in ballot.

In a letter dated Aug. 27, Keith Ingram, director of elections for the Texas secretary of state, told Harris County to “immediately halt” its plans to send every registered voter in the county an application for a mail-in ballot for the general election. Ingram demanded the county drop its plan by Monday to avoid legal action by the Texas attorney general.

Sending out the applications “would be contrary to our office’s guidance on this issue and an abuse of voters’ rights under Texas Election Code Section 31.005,” Ingram wrote, citing a provision of state law that gives the secretary of state’s office power to take such action to “protect the voting rights” of Texans from “abuse” by local officials responsible for administering elections.

Earlier this week, the Harris County Clerk’s office announced it would be sending every registered voter an application for a mail-in ballot for the general election. With more than 2 million residents on the voter rolls, the move to proactively send out applications that voters must otherwise request or find online put Harris in line with an initiative that several states have carried out for primary elections during the coronavirus pandemic.

The effort expands on the county’s decision ahead of the July primary runoffs when it sent applications to all voters 65 and older — which other counties will be doing for the general election. Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins previously said he was encouraged by the county’s return rate for the runoffs and indicated the county would build on that effort for the general election to encourage as many eligible voters as possible to vote by mail during the pandemic.

Not all Harris County voters would ultimately qualify. Texas is one of just six states that haven’t opened up mail-in voting to any voter concerned about getting COVID-19 at a polling place. The state’s strict eligibility requirements limit mail-in ballots for voters who are 65 or older, those who will be out of the county during the election period, voters who cite a disability or illness, or voters confined in jail but still eligible to vote.

The secretary of state’s office has advised counties seeking to proactively send out applications to limit those mailings to voters who are 65 and older to avoid confusion about eligibility. But there appears to be no state law that specifically prohibits sending out applications to all voters.

In his letter, Ingram raises the prospect that sending applications to all voters, including those who do not qualify, may cause confusion among voters and “impede the ability of persons who need to vote by mail to do so” by “clogging up the vote by mail infrastructure” with applications from voters who do not qualify.

In applying for a mail-in ballot, voters must check off which of the state’s eligibility criteria they meet. (The secretary of state allows any voter to request an application for a mail-in ballot through its online portal without asking whether the voter meets the eligibility requirements.)

Though the state has expanded the early voting period for elections held during the pandemic, the confrontation between the secretary of state’s office and Harris County is the latest in the state’s general opposition to altering voting rules or practices during the pandemic. Most of that fight has played out in court, where Texas’ Republican leadership, citing unsubstantiated concerns about widespread fraud, has successfully blocked efforts by state Democrats, civil rights groups and individual voters to expand vote-by-mail eligibility.

But the letter to Harris County marks the most active involvement in the fight by the secretary of state’s office, which typically limits its footprint to providing guidance to the local election officials responsible for carrying out elections on the ground. A spokesperson for the secretary of state did not immediately return a request for comment on other instances in which the office has used this power to intervene in local election practices.

Disclosure: The Texas secretary of state’s office has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Engel announces contempt proceedings against Pompeo

The top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Friday announced contempt proceedings against Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, saying America’s top diplomat has ignored the committee’s request

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The top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Friday announced contempt proceedings against Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, saying America’s top diplomat has ignored the committee’s request to investigate his…