Responses and Submission Directions

Questions: 1. Based on what you have read, describe the purpose of Voter Id Laws, and explain the political this type of law has in connection with the two variables: elections and demographics. Make sure to include any/all evidence for any/all sources used to develop and support your response. 2. Based on the information from the first article, what would you predict to be the impact of voter id laws on the current levels of participation in this state? (i.e. will elections become more democratic, competitive, no effect. Etc.) and Explain Answers: 1. The laws relating to voter ID are a legal and sensible way of protecting the integrity of the elections (www.texastribune.org). It is such a law, which requires some form of identification for the purpose of voting or receiving a ballot for an election. Most of the laws that are passed or strengthened in the past years require the registered voters to show their ID before they are allowed to vote. The back and forth taking place over the constitutionality of the law had created concerns by some of the election officials that the voters might be baffled regarding whether they are required to carry a photo ID to cast their vote. The voter ID laws of the state that was passed in 2011 had come into effect much later. According to it, most of the citizens were required to show one of a handful of allowable photo ID cards before their votes can be considered. In Texas, the voter ID law has been put into practice already in the past three elections, and Ginsburg had defined them as low-p articipation elections. It had been argued that it was in the courts interest to avoid the enforcement of voter ID in the first federal general election of the state since Gov. Rick Perry had signed the law. It had also been argued by Ginsburg that the case of Texas was different from that of Ohio and North Carolina, both of which had new voter rules, which had been permitted by the Supreme Court to take effect (Katz). The voter ID law of Texas unlike the legal challenges in the two states was the subject of a full trial where the evidence of ballot-access discrimination by the State was apparent. According to the three justices, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the effect of the laws would disenfranchise more than 600000 registered Texas voters since they did not have a photo identity, which complied with the law. 2. The Texas Democrats had thought of winning some races by attracting the votes of people who do not at all vote or do it infrequently to the polls (www.texastribune.org). Contrary to their expectations, fewer votes were attracted in 2014 that it had been four years back when both the population of the state and the number of the registered voters were both comparatively smaller. The overall turnout had fallen by around 300000 from 2010 to 2014 (Wilson, Mallory). The reason behind this might be that the rigid voter ID laws reduce voter turnout especially among the black voters, poor voters, disabled voters, elderly voters, minority-language voters and voters who have changed their names. The strong adverse reactions to the voter ID laws might also be the reason for decreasing the number of the voters (Wilson). The voter ID laws were expected to bring positive results but it the outcomes were quite negative. There was a drastic fall in the number of registered voters from the year 20 10 to 201(Batheja, Aman). References Batheja, Aman. "U.S. Supreme Court: Texas Can Enforce Voter ID Law For Nov. 4 Election, By Aman Batheja". The Texas Tribune. N.p., 2016. Web. 25 Mar. 2016. Katz, Ellen D. "Dignity and Discriminatory Intent: What the Marriage Equality Cases Tell Us About Voter ID."University of Chicago Legal Forum, Forthcoming. 2015. Murphy, Ryan, and Ross Ramsey. "Map: How Democratic Turnout Tumbled Across Texas, By Ryan Murphy And Ross Ramsey". The Texas Tribune. N.p., 2016. Web. 25 Mar. 2016 Wilson, Mallory. "Voter Photo ID Laws: Using Primary Source Election Turnout Data and Foreign Examples to Identify the Proper Mechanisms for Implementation."Ind. Int'l Comp. L. Rev.25 (2015): 347.