SAN ANTONIO, C.A. – A federal judge in San Antonio today ordered local officials in Texas not to remove any person from the current voter registration list until authorized by the Court and without prior approval of the Court with a conclusive showing that the person is ineligible to vote. United States District Court Fred Biery also ordered the Texas Secretary of State to tell other counties that are not parties to the litigation not to send any notice letters advising them that they will be removed from the voting rolls if they do not respond and not to remove voters from the rolls.
“The preliminary relief ordered by Judge Biery today places an immediate stop to the State’s unconstitutional practices,” said Ezra Rosenberg Co-Director of the Voting Rights Project for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “The right to vote is too precious that it should be treated with the nonchalance evidenced by the Secretary of State’s original advisory to the counties.”
The lawsuit claims that Texas officials created and sent a flawed advisory to counties that flagged tens of thousands of registered voters for citizen reviews, despite knowing that the list included naturalized citizens eligible to vote. Texas’s advisory was based on data derived from Texas’s driver license records, which failed to take into account that persons listed as non-citizens on those records, may very well have become naturalized citizens since they first applied for their driver’s licenses.
The plaintiffs in the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law’s lawsuit are seeking that the court declare that the Secretary of State’s advisory violates the United States Constitution and the Voting Rights Act and that it block all Texas counties from sending notices to individuals requiring them to prove their citizenship on the basis of the purge list, or from removing any registered voter from the voter rolls based on a failure to respond to such letters.
The order was issued in the case of Texas League of United Latin American Citizens, et al. v. David Whitley, et al., one of three cases combined in the Western District of Texas. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, together with the Texas Civil Rights Project, the ACLU of Texas, the national ACLU, and Demos, filed one of the other cases on behalf of MOVE Texas Civic Fund, Jolt Initiative, League of Women Voters of Texas. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law’s lawsuit also includes as defendants election officials from several counties, including Galveston, Blanco, Fayette, Caldwell, and Washington.
You can read the order here.
About the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, was formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to involve the private bar in providing legal services to address racial discrimination. Now in its 56th year, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is continuing its quest to “Move America Toward Justice.” The principal mission of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is to secure, through the rule of law, equal justice for all, particularly in the areas of criminal justice, fair housing and community development, economic justice, educational opportunities, and voting rights.
