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Texas can require people applying to vote by mail to submit identification numbers that match state records, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.<\/p>\n
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the state in a legal battle brought by the Biden administration and several voting rights groups, Bloomberg News\u00a0reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n A three-judge panel found the ID match system is a valid way to prevent fraud and confirmed that it does not violate the Civil Rights Act.\u00a0The court said the law is \u201cobviously designed to confirm that every mail-in voter is indeed who he claims he is.\u201d<\/p>\n Judge James Ho wrote the opinion, reversing a lower court decision from November 2023 that had struck down the number match requirement.<\/p>\n That lower court had argued the match was not material in determining voter eligibility.\u00a0But the Fifth Circuit disagreed, saying it had \u201cno difficulty\u201d concluding that the law is compliant.\u00a0The ruling lifts the prior injunction that had been paused by the court in December 2023.<\/p>\n The ID requirement is part of S.B. 1, a wide-ranging election law passed by Texas Republicans in 2021 in the wake of the 2020 election.<\/p>\n