Holder Praises Rulings Blocking Voter ID Laws in Texas, Wisconsin

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza(WASHINGTON) — Attorney General Eric Holder praised a pair of rulings on Thursday night that prevented Texas and Wisconsin from implementing laws that would require voters to prove their identification at the ballot box.

A federal district judge ruled in favor of the Justice Department’s lawsuit against the state of Texas’ law on Thursday night. That ruling, Holder said, “affirms our position that the Texas voter identification law unfairly and unnecessarily restricts access to the franchise.”

Holder said that his department, “even after the Voting Rights Act was seriously eroded last year…vowed to continue enforcing the remaining portions of that statute as aggressively as possible.” Thursday night’s ruling, “is an important vindication of those efforts,” the attorney general said.

Also on Thursday night, the Supreme Court blocked Wisconsin’s voter identification law from going into effect pending an appeal. Holder said that he and his department were “also pleased that the Supreme Court has refused to allow Wisconsin to implement its own restrictive voter identification law.”

“This department will never yield in its commitment to protecting that most sacred of Americans’ rights — the right to vote,” Holder concluded.

Proponents of the measures insist having voters prove who they say they are is not only not restrictive, but necessary to combat voter fraud.

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