The Supreme Court refused to intervene early Saturday to prevent the possible disenfranchisement of 610,000 Texans for next month's midterm election. The 6-3 ruling upheld an appeals court decision but goes against a district judge's finding, following a nine-day trial, that the state's voter ID law discriminates against persons of color. <\/p>
The court's majority issued no opinion. The appellate court it upheld had turned logic upside down, reasoning that voters would be confused if it threw out the state's ID requirement so close to Election Day; never mind the confusion, and injustice, sure to go along with the law's requirement that Texans track down, and often pay for, an ID in order to exercise democracy's most fundamental right.<\/p>
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg penned a scathing dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. \"The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters,\" Ginsburg wrote.<\/p>