The Texas Voter ID Law
The right to vote is known to be the “preservative” of all other rights as the U.S Supreme Court has declared it. Casting a ballot is a way to bring the people and the government together and remind individuals that they are part of a political system. Although voting is important, it has not always been as prevalent in the U.S as it is today. In Texas, Universal suffrage only became a reality in the mid-1960s. Even after the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S constitution were adopted (after the civil war 1861-1865) to prevent denial of the right to vote based on race, in Texas and in others states of the former Confederacy African Americans and Latinos were prevented from voting through other barriers such as the literacy test, the grandfather clause, the poll tax, the all-white primaries, the racial gerrymandering and the creation of at-large majority districts for state legislature and city councils. It’s only in 1965 that the U.S Congress enacted a Federal Voting Rights legislation that places limits on the state’s power to determine voter’s qualification. This Act, amended four times, has been extended until 2031. Together with other Supreme Court rulings, it…show more content… The process of obtaining a photo ID can be cumbersome and cost prohibitive for some citizens, even free state ID requiring documents like birth certificates that can cost up to $25. They argue that photo IDs such as student IDs, expired driver’s licenses or valid employee ID cards with photographs should be admitted at the voting registers because they are relatively easier to get and wouldn’t create an substantial obstacle to the right to vote. In this same idea, thinking about astronauts who won’t be able to get new voter IDs, this law might affect their ability to cast ballots from space, although they are qualified