The Guardian: Hillary Clinton: GOP candidates 'afraid of democracy' with voting rights stances

Texas Democrats and watchdog groups have detailed numerous examples of would-be voters disenfranchised by the law. “Texas by far is the breeding ground for discrimination in voting practices. They lead the way when it comes to voter suppression,” said Gerry Hebert, executive director and director of litigation at the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington-based nonprofit.

In November’s gubernatorial election, he said, “a number of people tried to go and vote but were turned away because of a lack of ID. But nobody keeps statistics on that.”

Reliable figures are hard to come by, Hebert said, in part because it is impossible to know how many people did not bother to turn up at the polls and risk the embarrassment of being turned away...

In April the CLC released a video focusing on three Texans which illustrated that it can be extraordinarily difficult to get credentials, even with the help of a lawyer. “My state ID was expired so I called the DPS, department of public safety, and they told me that because my name was changed in 1964 [after his parents married] I could not get an ID. Ever since 1964 I have had this name and there’s been no problem until this DPS ID thing came up,” said one of the case studies, Anthony Settles.

“The bureaucrats and the politicians are giving me hell and I have done nothing wrong and my family did nothing wrong. So I am being punished without doing anything wrong. I wonder, what kind of America is it that punishes people that did nothing wrong?”

Since he could not find a name change certificate, one desperate option he considered was legally changing his name again, which was not certain to work and would cost him a filing fee of $247.

To read the full story at The Guardian, click here.