As expected, the United States Department of Justice has objected to Texas’s new voter identification law, on grounds Texas has not shown the law can be implemented without making the position of protected Hispanic voters worse.  You can read the objection letter here. An excerpt:

Even after submitting data that show over 600,000 registered voters do not have either a
driver’s license or personal identification card issued by DPS – and that a disproportionate share of those registered voters are Hispanic – the state has failed to propose, much less adopt, any program for individuals who have to travel a significant distance to a DPS office, who have limited access to transportation, or who are unable to get to a DPS office during their hours of operation. This failure is particularly noteworthy given Texas’s geography and demographics, which arguably make the necessity for mitigating measures greater than in other states. The state also has not developed any specific proposals to educate either voters about how to comply with the new identification requirement or poll officials about how to enforce the proposed change.

In conclusion, the state has not met its burden of proving that, when compared to the benchmark, the proposed requirement will not have a retrogressive effect, or that any specific features of the proposed law will prevent or mitigate that retrogression.  Additionally, the state has failed to demonstrate why it could not meet its stated goals of ensuring electoral integrity and deterring ineligible voters from voting in a manner that would have avoided this retrogressive effect. Because we conclude that the state has failed to meet its burden of demonstrating that the proposed law will not have a retrogressive effect, we do not make any determination as to whether then state has established that the proposed changes were adopted with no discriminatory purpose.

What’s next? A status hearing on Wednesday in Texas’s lawsuit to get preclearance despite DOJ objection.