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As the Supreme Court takes up fundamental challenges to voting rights laws and affirmative action, the storied NAACP Legal Defense Fund prepares to take on a new leader, Sherrilyn Ifill.
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The international observers were also present in 2004 and 2008. Greg Abbott said the group's opinion is "legally irrelevant in the United States."
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Judges in these cases have declined to rule on the constitutionality of the laws. Instead, they have signaled the laws would withstand scrutiny if states can ensure that the vast majority of voters have easier access to free IDs. Legal scholars agree that many of these measures could be enacted after Election Day.
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Officials can still ask for identification, the judge rules, but cannot invalidate anyone's vote for lack of an ID card.
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Pennsylvania's highest court is returning the state's controversial voter ID law to a lower court judge who must decide whether it will disenfranchise some voters. The deadline for that decision is three weeks away.
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Earlier this summer, Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Court upheld the state's polarizing voter identification law. With Election Day nearing, the state's Supreme Court is considering a challenge to that decision. But voting rights activists are taking no chances, and are now trying to put a million photo ID cards in the hands of residents.
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Eight weeks before the presidential election, new laws passed by Republican legislatures that concern who can vote and when remain in the hands of federal and state judges. The federal court trial over South Carolina's voter ID law raised questions about how such laws might be implemented.
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A federal three judge panel has struck down a new voter ID law in Texas, ruling that it would disproportionately harm Hispanic and African American voters, who are less likely to have the required photo identification. Pam Fessler talks to Melissa Block.
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A three-judge panel said the pending law would discriminate against racial minorities and the poor, who are less likely to have photo identification.
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The law would require anyone wanting to vote to first show a photo identification. Republicans argue the law is about preventing voter fraud; Democrats say it is aimed at disenfranchising black voters.