Today marks another victory for those championing a cleaner election system. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reportedly removed a lower court’s hold on a Texas integrity law, per Just The News.
The appeals court decided last month that a lawsuit challenging Texas’ new rule would not move forward as the groups who brought it forth lacked the legal standing to do so. This follows a ruling in Georgia a few weeks before that declared the state’s law requiring a voter ID was constitutional.
The Federal Court of Appeals upheld the Texas election integrity law that I signed last session.
Integrity of the ballot box is essential.
Texas has one of the strongest election integrity laws in America.https://t.co/RfwhRV4i4Z via @thecentersquare
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) November 18, 2022
The Texas measure, which was put forth by the legislature and signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in 2021, mandates that voters who list their address as a commercial P.O. Box, or any other non-residential location, provide paperwork for their true home.
Mainstream media “news” outlet NBC ludicrously called the bill “controversial” at the time.
Advocacy groups Voto Latino and The Texas League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) reportedly attempted to block several provisions of the law by suing numerous county election officials in federal court.
They argued that the law “chills their speech,” and that other provisions violate the First, Fourteenth, and Twenty-Sixth Amendments by unduly stifling the right to vote.
The eventually successful appeal was filed to the Fifth Circuit by the office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Ultimately, the arguments of the plaintiffs were rejected by the court.
“In sum, the district court erred in concluding Plaintiffs had organizational standing based on a chilled-speech theory. Because the Plaintiffs lack standing, the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. We, therefore, REVERSE the district court’s judgment and RENDER judgment dismissing Plaintiffs’ claims,” said the court.
State Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-TX) commended the court’s ruling.
“The whole purpose of this bill was to clean up voter rolls in counties because absolutely nobody’s residential address is in a 2-3-inch P.O. Box!” he said to The Center Square. “It’s preposterous that anyone would try to claim otherwise! SB 1111 is a common-sense Election Integrity bill that confirms people are registered to vote where they physically reside.”
