Boom! Lawyered is back! In this episode, hosts Jessica Mason Pieklo and Imani Gandy explain which states are trying to prevent you from voting, why the Department of Justice went from helping to hurting, and how this all might play out in the courts in 2018.

An edited excerpt:

Imani: Let’s talk about Texas, because leave it to Texas to have the most strict voter ID law in the nation. Also, leave it to Texas to have the messiest possible litigation about its most strict ID law in the nation.

Jess: What do you mean? Messy how?

Imani: Oy vey. Okay, so Texas passed a voter ID law in 2011. It was called SB 14, which said that every voter must present at their polling place either a Texas driver’s license, a Texas election identification certificate, a Texas personal identification card, a Texas concealed handgun license, a United States military ID card containing the person’s photograph, a U.S. citizenship certificate containing the person’s photograph, or a U.S. passport.

Jess: Stop it. Did you say you can use a concealed handgun license to get an ID to vote?

Imani: Yes, you can use a concealed handgun license, but you can’t use a student ID card. Do you want to know why that is?

Jess: I’m going to say because students maybe tend to vote for Democrats.

Imani: Ding ding ding, pretty much.

Recommended Reading:

• Supreme Court Lets Mississippi’s Anti-LGBTQ Law Stand—for Now, by Jessica Mason Pieklo for Rewire, January 2018
• Boom! Lawyered: Standing Edition, by Imani Gandy for Rewire, August 2016
• A Dead-Simple Algorithm Reveals the True Toll of Voter I.D. Laws, by Issie Lapowsky for Wired, January 2018

Transcript (PDF)