Texas can require people applying to vote by mail to submit identification numbers that match state records, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the state in a legal battle brought by the Biden administration and several voting rights groups, Bloomberg News reported.
A three-judge panel found the ID match system is a valid way to prevent fraud and confirmed that it does not violate the Civil Rights Act. The court said the law is “obviously designed to confirm that every mail-in voter is indeed who he claims he is.”
Judge James Ho wrote the opinion, reversing a lower court decision from November 2023 that had struck down the number match requirement.
That lower court had argued the match was not material in determining voter eligibility. But the Fifth Circuit disagreed, saying it had “no difficulty” concluding that the law is compliant. The ruling lifts the prior injunction that had been paused by the court in December 2023.
The ID requirement is part of S.B. 1, a wide-ranging election law passed by Texas Republicans in 2021 in the wake of the 2020 election.
Democrats and activists claim the law unfairly blocks eligible voters from casting ballots.
The Biden Justice Department argued the state’s database system is unreliable and leads to wrongful ballot rejections.
One filing showed that more than 60,000 voter records had mismatched ID numbers as of January 2023.
Still, the judges appeared unconvinced during oral arguments in February and did not ask a single question of the Texas attorney general’s lawyer.
Judge Patrick Higginbotham and Judge Don Willett joined Ho’s decision.
The plaintiffs were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, ACLU of Texas, Disability Rights Texas, Texas Civil Rights Project, the Department of Justice, and the Democratic National Committee.
Defendants included the Texas Attorney General’s Office, the America First Policy Institute, and the law firm Jones Day.
The case is United States v. Paxton, 5th Cir., No. 23-50885, decided August 4, 2025.
The decision came the same day Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton backed a resolution passed by the Texas House that calls for the arrest of Democrat lawmakers who are absent from the Capitol.
Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) announced Sunday that his state would offer protection to Texas Democrats who fled to Illinois in protest of Republican-led efforts to redraw Texas’s congressional districts.
“They’re here in Illinois. We’re going to do everything we can to protect every single one of them and make sure that — ’cause we know they’re doing the right thing, we know that they’re following the law,” Pritzker told reporters at a press conference Sunday night held alongside the Texas state lawmakers, per The Hill.
“It’s Ken Paxton who doesn’t follow the law. It’s the leaders of Texas who are attempting not to follow the law,” he claimed. “They’re the ones that need to be held accountable.”
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s remarks followed the decision by Texas Democrats to flee their state in order to block a quorum — the minimum number of lawmakers required to conduct legislative business — during a special session called by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R).