{"id":970,"date":"2018-05-12T11:29:25","date_gmt":"2018-05-12T15:29:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=970"},"modified":"2018-05-12T11:53:50","modified_gmt":"2018-05-12T15:53:50","slug":"saying-the-state-is-violating-a-voter-registration-law-federal-judge-gives-texas-until-thursday-to-propose-a-fix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=970","title":{"rendered":"Saying the state is violating a voter registration law, federal judge gives Texas until Thursday to propose a fix"},"content":{"rendered":"

Civil rights advocates hope that the ruling by\u00a0U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia could force Texas to adopt a version of online voter registration.<\/p>\n

BY\u00a0EMMA PLATOFF<\/a><\/span>\u00a0

Voters line up at an early voting station in Houston on Oct. 24, 2016. Poll workers said the lines were much longer than normal for early voting.\u00a0<\/i>\u00a0Michael Stravato for The Texas Tribune<\/cite><\/p>\n

Texas has less than a week to tell a federal judge in San Antonio how it will begin complying with the National Voter Registration Act, a decades-old federal law aimed at making it easier for people to register to vote by forcing states to allow registration while drivers apply for or renew their driver\u2019s licenses.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia\u00a0ruled<\/a>\u00a0more than a month ago that Texas was violating the law, sometimes called the Motor Voter Act, by not allowing Texas drivers to register to vote when they update their driver\u2019s license information online. But it wasn\u2019t clear until this week what exactly state officials would have to do to address that \u2014\u00a0and by when they\u2019d have to do it.<\/p>\n

Now, Texas and the Texas Civil Rights Project \u2014\u00a0which sued the state over the issue in 2016, saying Texas\u2019 current system disenfranchised thousands of voters and violated the U.S. Constitution \u2014 have until Thursday to propose a detailed fix for the system. After that, Garcia will weigh the proposals and order a remedy.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefendants are violating [several sections] of the NVRA and their excuse for noncompliance is not supported by the facts or the law,\u201d Garcia\u00a0ruled<\/a>\u00a0in a strongly-worded 61-page opinion.<\/p>\n

Texas Civil Rights Project President Mimi Marziani said her group will fight to get a fix in place in time for voters to register for this fall\u2019s midterm elections. The deadline for Texas\u2019 closest election \u2014\u00a0May 22 primary runoff races \u2014\u00a0has already passed.<\/p>\n

The Texas Civil Rights Project has offered to work with the state to submit a remedy both sides can support. The Texas Attorney General\u2019s Office said Friday it was \u201creviewing the order and weighing our options.\u201d But a spokesman already pledged last month to appeal Garcia\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n

“We are not surprised by the order … by this particular judge,” spokesman Marc Rylander said at the time. “The Fifth Circuit will not give merit to such judicial activism because Texas voter registration is consistent with federal voter laws.”<\/p>\n

But, Marziani said, the state will not have the opportunity to appeal until after Garcia weighs in on the remedies each side proposes.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit centers on what plaintiffs characterize as a confusing procedure for registering to vote through the Department of Public Safety\u2019s online system. Plaintiffs said that Texans updating their driver\u2019s license information online were asked whether they wanted also to register to vote; when users checked \u201cyes\u201d to that prompt, they were directed to a registration form that they had to print out and send to their county registrar.<\/p>\n

Though the website specifies that checking yes \u201cdoes not register you to vote,\u201d that language has caused \u201cwidespread confusion\u201d among Texans who incorrectly thought their voting registration had been updated, the plaintiffs claimed.<\/p>\n

The state argued that its practices followed federal law. But lawyers for the Texas Attorney General\u2019s Office could not convince Garcia to dismiss the case.<\/p>\n

The state also argued that there are technological difficulties associated with online voter registration even in this narrow form, particularly because state law requires a signature when an individual registers to vote. But the state already keeps an electronic signature on file, officials told the court.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith motor voters\u2019 electronic signatures already in the voter registration agency\u2019s possession, there is no reason why Defendants could not register them to vote in a simultaneous online transaction,\u201d Garcia wrote.<\/p>\n

Marziani summed up Garcia\u2019s thorough order succinctly: \u201cLegally, the state has to make this change, and technologically, there\u2019s nothing standing in their way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Voting rights advocates are hopeful that Garcia\u2019s ruling will open the doors to a wider system of online voter registration in Texas.<\/p>\n

Texas is one of about a dozen states that does not yet provide for any form of online voter registration \u2014 a system critics warn would make the state\u2019s elections vulnerable to voter fraud. Most experts reject those claims.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Civil rights advocates hope that the ruling by\u00a0U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia could force Texas to adopt a version of online voter registration. BY\u00a0EMMA PLATOFF\u00a0MAY…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":971,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gopplaybook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/2018-05-12_11-28-48.jpg?fit=795%2C501&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8VBh7-fE","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":967,"url":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=967","url_meta":{"origin":970,"position":0},"title":"Federal judge: Texas is violating national voter registration law","author":"Donnie","date":"April 3, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"A federal judge has ruled that Texas violated the federal National Voter Registration Act. 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