Attention Texas Voters –  Get Ready to Whip it Out.  The Fifth Circuit stayed enforcement of a lower court ordered that would have prevented Texas election officials from requiring voters to show a photo ID prior to voting.  The basis for the ruling was that the lower court’s order came too close in time to the election and the US Supreme Court has repeatedly found that judicially ordered changes to the electoral system should not be made in the days before an election.  The Fifth Circuit panel specifically noted that election training materials had already gone out to election officials across the state and that the court order eliminating the photo ID requirement would have to be communicated by “word of mouth.”  Really?  I understand that the Court seemed to be following the Supreme Court’s directive to not mess with election protocols too close to election day, but a one-sentence directive to election officials could solve this.  How about — “Nobody has to show a photo ID to be eligible to vote in person.”

Anyone who know anything about elections, knows that the hanky-panky begins and ends with mail ballots – and the Texas Voter ID law does nothing to address that problem.  There are almost no documented instances of in-person voter fraud reported.  The fix was for a problem that did not exist and clearly designed to keep the po’ folks from voting by erecting another barricade to entry to the polling place.  So far so good in that respect.