In response to the population surge of Blacks and Latinos in Texas, Republicans are working tirelessly to prevent them from voting. Republicans now depend on the vanishing white majority for fully 90 percent of their votes in presidential elections. Texas use to be a slam dunk for the GOP - before the brown people came. 25% of Blacks do not have a photo ID. The Justice Department estimates that there are 600,000 people registered to vote in Texas whose names are not on driving licence or state identification databases. From [HERE] Texas will launch a challenge to a central piece of civil rights legislation in a Washington court on Monday in a case the Obama administration has characterised as a fight to protect the right to vote. The five-day hearing will rule on whether the US justice department has the power to block Texas from implementing a state law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls – a move critics say will disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of people, principally Latinos and other minorities.

The decision by a federal court is likely to have a bearing on a flood of similar legislation in other states over recent years although the issue is expected to end up before the Supreme Court. The Obama administration blocked the Texas legislation using a clause in the 1965 Voting Rights Act which requires 16 states with a history of discriminatory laws and practices to clear all or some changes in voting laws and constituency boundaries with the justice department.

The Texas attorney-general, Greg Abbott (in photo), argues that the Voting Rights Act does not apply because the state is simply enforcing anti-fraud measures in order to "protect the integrity of the vote". But civil rights groups say the voter ID law discriminates against minorities, and to a lesser extent the young and the old, who are less likely to hold driving licences, the primary means of identification issued by Texas state authorities. Critics note that the law recognises gun permits as a legitimate form of identification but not student cards issued by the state.