A federal appeals court struck down Texas' Republican-backed voter ID law on Wednesday in a victory for the Obama administration, which had taken the unusual step of bringing the weight of the U.S. Justice Department into the fight, according to AP. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the 2011 law carries a "discriminatory effect" and violates one of the remaining provisions of the Voting Rights Act. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the heart of it in 2013. President Barack Obama has said voter ID laws can be a barrier to voting. Democrats call them attempts to keep black and Latino voters from the polls. Republicans say they're fighting voter fraud. The Justice Department had argued that the Texas law, considered one of the toughest voter ID measures in the country, would prevent as many as 600,000 voters from casting a ballot because they lacked one of seven forms of approved ID. Texas was allowed to use the voter ID law during the 2014 elections, thereby requiring an estimated 13.6 million registered voters to have a photo ID. Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton did not immediately comment on the ruling. A lower court had previously found that the voter ID was passed with the intent of discriminating against minorities. In striking down the Texas measure, however, the appeals court did not find the voter ID requirement to be the equivalent of a poll tax.
