The US Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit [official website] held [opinion, PDF] on Wednesday that the Texas photo voter identification law, SB 14 [materials], had a discriminatory effect on minority voters, violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) [text]. However, the case was remanded to the district court to reexamine whether its discriminatory purpose was intentional. The district court must now implement a temporary remedy to the voting procedures that would ease the discriminatory effects without causing too much disruption to this year’s general elections. The court disagreed with the plaintiffs’ claim that the law is a poll tax and also declined to consider whether the law places an undue constitutional burden on voters.

The Texas voter identification law, first passed in 2011, is one of the strictest in the country. The law was blocked by the Department of Justice [official website], which previously had the power to review voting changes in some jurisdictions under a preclearance requirement laid out in Sections 4 and 5 of the VRA. However, when the Supreme Court struck down [JURIST report] Section 4 in 2013, there was no longer a basis for enforcing the requirement in those jurisdictions. Texas lawmakers announced their plans to reenact the voting law hours after the Court’s decision. In October 2014, a district court ruled [JURIST report] that SB 14 violates the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the US Constitution and filed a permanent injunction [JURIST report] against its enforcement days later. However, an appeals court temporarily reinstated [JURIST report] the law, stating that the upcoming elections were too close to make a change and the Supreme Court permitted [JURIST report] the law to be enforced. In March, the court agreed [JURIST report] to reconsider Texas’ voter identification law before the entire court, as opposed to a panel of just three judges. That month, the League of United Latin American Citizens and Congressman Marc Veasy, along with other plaintiffs, filed an application [JURIST report] with the Supreme Court, asking the Court to vacate a stay that allowed the voter ID law to remain in place during the 2014 midterm elections. The Court did not vacate the stay, but stated that if the Appeals Court did not make a ruling in this case by July 20th, then the parties could seek relief from the Supreme Court.