Republican victory: Appeals court upholds Texas voter ID law

A federal appeals court for the Fifth Circuit issued a unanimous ruling on Monday, upholding the legality of the Texas Election Integrity Protection Act of 2021.

That law requires voters using vote-by-mail voting to include a state identification number or the last four digits of their Social Security number on their ballots. The decision reverses a previous district court ruling and rejects claims by the Biden Administration and civil rights groups, who argued that the law violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by imposing "non-material" requirements for ballot validity.

Judge James Ho, who wrote the unanimous opinion, stated that "the ID number requirement is obviously designed to confirm that each mail-in ballot voter is precisely who he claims he is. And that is plainly ‘material’ to ‘determining whether such individual is qualified under State law to vote,’" Ho stressed that vote-by-mail fraud poses "a significant threat," citing precedent set in the case Veasey v. Abbott, where the Fifth Circuit had already acknowledged concerns about the security of vote-by-mail voting.

The Biden Administration's lawsuit

The Biden Administration, along with several civil rights groups, sued the state following the law's enactment, arguing that the ID requirement could disqualify legitimate votes due to minor errors, such as discrepancies in the ID numbers provided.

For its part, Texas defended the measure as an essential tool to combat voter fraud, an interest that Ho said the courts have recognized as legitimate and that gives states "considerable discretion" in determining how to protect the integrity of their elections.

The Texas Election Integrity Protection Act, enacted in September 2021 following the 2020 presidential election, is part of a broader effort by several Republican-led states to strengthen voter ID requirements.

In addition to ID requirements for vote-by-mail voting, the law also limited local control over elections by prohibiting counties from offering expanded voting options, such as ballot drop-off boxes or extended early voting hours, according to the Texas Tribune.

Despite the plaintiffs' arguments that there is insufficient evidence that the ID requirement significantly reduces voter fraud, the court held that Texas has the right to implement preventative measures to protect the integrity of its elections. Ho emphasized that Fifth Circuit precedent supports the states' authority to address these concerns, even if there is no consensus on the magnitude of the fraud problem.