Texas has already agreed to a softening of its voter id law for this election. As expected, the state has announced it will file a cert. petition at the Supreme Court seeking review.

But this line in the Dallas News story is weird:

The state will soon file an appeal to “protect the integrity of voting in the state,” said Paxton spokesman Marc Rylander. He declined to specify whether Paxton would file an emergency appeal or go through the standard process, which could make it less likely the stringent ID rules will be in place for November’s elections.

Seemed clear from the filings there would be no emergency SCOTUS action. And if there were, I’m sure the SCOTUS emergency review would be denied because (1) Texas waited too long given the imminent election; (2) it has started an education program for voters and training of election officials on how the new rules work; and (3) there are not 5 votes on the 4-4 Supreme Court for such relief.

I also expect cert. will be denied eventually. Liberals will like the rulings. And conservatives won’t find a fifth vote to overturn this finding on the merits.

This is so even though there is something of a Circuit split on how to apply Section 2 of the VRA to new vote denial claims.