Sub-Rosa Approval of Veterans Health Cards As Voter I.D. In Texas

A reader (Frank Provasek) has provided extremely valuable and eye-opening information in his comment on my post about Veasey v. Perry and the State’s selective, politically motivated treatment of veterans’ I.D.s. Without any public announcement or acknowledgment, the Secretary of State now accepts veteran’s health I.D. cards as voter I.D.s in the polling place, encouraging further cherry-picking, ad hoc after-the-fact administrative legislating, and pandering to specific conservative voters.

Although you may have seen Mr. Provasek’s comment already, I wanted to highlight it for those of you who may not regularly check subsequent developments on my posts. I’m reproducing Mr. Provasek’s comment in full:

Texas DPS defines military ID as a primary form of ID, and defines Veterans cards not as a primary or even secondary form of ID, but merely “a supporting document” like an electric bill with your name on it. . The Veterans cards are pictured in a PDF file here http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/forms/id/acceptable-forms-of-ID.pdf

The VA created a NEW card called Veterans HEALTH Identification Card (VHIC) to go alongside the Veterans Identificatiion Card (VIC) The new card rolled out in Summer of 2014, so even AFTER the regular Veterans ID cards were somehow added in 2013, an additional card was added in 2014, while the Veasey v Perry lawsuit was underway.

You wouldn’t know these veterans cards are accepted by a text search on the SOS website (or any state website). They are only shown as images in powerpoint or pdf files — and do not show up in a Google search. They are not mentioned in the law, the election code, nor on the state voter portal here http://votetexas.gov/register-to-vote/need-id/ or on the posters displayed at the polling places http://votetexas.gov/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/poster-8.5×14-aw.pdf

(Emphasis added).