On February 16, U.S. District Court Judge Orlando Garcia, a Clinton appointee, sanctioned Texas state government for failing to follow court orders to produce certain pieces of evidence. The case is Stringer v Pablos, w.d., SA-16-CA-257. The issue is whether Texas is or is not complying with the federal motor voter law. Plaintiffs say that many individuals register to vote at Department of Motor Vehicle offices, or update their voter registration, and yet those applications don’t get processed.
Plaintiffs asked for certain kinds of evidence from the state, and the state was supposed to produce them by September 24, 2016, but the state got permission to instead submit the documents by January 17. But, that deadline passed without any production of the documents. Here is the order.
Hold the AG of Texas for contempt of court and see how fast those documents appear
Brandon’s comment is spot on!
These Texas pols are so slimy.
Your explanation is not accurate. The claim is that when voters renew or update their drivers license online, that the online transaction does not include an opportunity to register or change the address on their voter registration. The suit claims that it is an equal protection violation to discriminate based on how a person interacts with the Department of Public Safety.
The NVRA requires that applications for voter registration be signed to attest to the accuracy of the information in the application. Since it is impossible to sign an online transaction, Texas:
(1) Asks the licensee whether they want to register to vote or update their voter registration address;
(2) Produces a completed registration application that the licensee may sign and mail to election authorities.
It informs the licensee that ticking “Yes” does not cause them to have their voter registration address updated.
12,000 pages of documents have been produced. The argument is whether it was timely in order to conduct depositions. The court order mainly permits the plaintiffs to re-open depositions.