Court finds Texas voter ID law 'discriminatory.' What now?

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — An appeals court has dealt the strongest blow yet to Texas' strict voter ID law, ruling that it violates federal protections against discrimination at the ballot box and must be reshaped before November so as not to unfairly harm poor and minority Texas residents.

The law went into effect in 2014, even as legal challenges continued to rage.

[...] Texas held three statewide elections under it with no reports of major voter disruptions.

During this year's presidential election, voters will still be required to show picture identification to cast ballots.

Approved in 1965, it was a landmark civil rights measure that prohibited the use of poll taxes and other requirements designed to discourage blacks from voting in much of the post-Civil War South.

The Voting Rights Act used to require that Texas — and other, mostly southern states with histories of discrimination — get federal approval when redrawing electoral maps or making laws pertaining to elections.

In 2014, a federal judge in Corpus Christi declared Texas' law unconstitutional, likening it to a poll tax and saying it had a discriminatory effect on poor and minority voters.

Last year, a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court found that the law violated parts of the federal Voting Rights Act.