The Texas Voter ID Law isn't Dead

Despite what you might thing after reading the headline, "Federal Court Strikes Down Tough Texas Voter ID Law", the law is far from dead. If only because this one is probably going all the way to the Supreme Court. 

The Wednesday decision was a victory for the president, who has directed the Justice Department to try to beat back a movement in several Republican-led state governments to implement ballot-box restrictions.

Ballot-box restrictions. I like that. Yeah, we want to implement ballot box restrictions that keep Mickey Mouse, dead people, and non-citizens from voting. When voter participation significantly exceeds the national average, and registered voters outnumber those eligible to vote, you've got a problem. Electoral fraud is a stain upon our country's rule of law and should be prosecuted with extreme prejudice, in addition to making it difficult to accomplish.

Texas was then free to enforce its law, which requires one of seven forms of approved identification, a list that included concealed carry licenses but not a college student's university ID. Proponents said would reduce ballot fraud.

Note that the article is acting like concealed carry licenses - a government issued photo ID - are inferior to a college's student ID - an unregulated, easily faked, non-governmental ID, that can be issued to anyone. It makes perfect sense to prevent student ID from being used to register to vote. Government issued IDs use various tactics - such as watermarks - to make the creation of fake IDs difficult (though not impossible) and include barcodes and magnetic strips. Student IDs are a piece of plastic with your name, the name of your school, and possibly the school's mascot, and have no legal standing.  There is no good reason to allow student IDs to be used for voter registration, and a lot of good reasons to prevent it.

"Today's ruling is a victory for every Texas voter. Once again, the rule of law agrees with Democrats. The Republican voter ID law is discriminatory," Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said in a statement.

If he really felt that way about the rule of law he wouldn't be so happy. Election fraud is a blight upon the rule of law, rendering the polls untrustworthy. It effectively disenfranchises all the legitimate voters - even the ones who voted the same way that the fraud went - making it so that the only vote that matters is that of the man (or the group) behind the fraud. In time, it will destroy the rule of law and the system will end in violence.