Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott issued the following statement Monday about the state’s legal action seeking a federal court’s approval to implement the Texas voter identification law.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that voter identification laws are constitutional,” Abbott said. “Texas should be allowed the same author i ty other states have to protect the integrity of elections. To fasttrack that authority, Texas is taking legal action in a D.C. Court seeking approval of its voter identification law.”

Under the Texas voter identification law, voters must show a governmentissued photo identification in order to vote at a polling place. Texans who do not already have a driver’s license, passport, military identification card or other approved form of identification can get a stateissued voter identification card free of charge from the Texas Department of Public Safety. Additionally, anyone who is disabled or over the age of 65 can vote by mail, which allows them to use mail-in ballots without having to get a photo identification.

The Texas Legislature enacted the photo identification law in 2011 to help deter and detect election fraud. In a decision upholding a similar voter identification law in Indiana, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that all states have an “interest in deterring and detecting voter fraud.” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that there “is no question about the legitimacy or importance of the State’s interest in counting only the votes of eligible voters” and that states have “justification for carefully identifying all voters participating in the election process.”

The Supreme Court also ruled that the voter identification law was justified because “flagrant examples” of election fraud have been documented throughout U.S. history. According to the U.S. Department of Justice website, federal prosecutors have secured election fraud convictions against more than 100 defendants since 2002. During the same period, the Texas Attorney General’s Office has successfully prosecuted nearly 50 individuals for violating the Texas Election Code. Those convictions include a woman who submitted her deceased mother’s ballot, an activist who cast votes illegally for elderly voters and a city council member who unlawfully registered ineligible foreign nationals to vote so they could support her in a contested primary election.

The Supreme Court made clear that photo identification requirements are nondiscriminatory. The court also said it is not too much to ask of voters to get a photo identification. “The inconvenience of making a trip to the [Bureau of Motor Vehicles], gathering the required documents, and posing for a photograph surely does not qualify as a substantial burden on the right to vote, or even represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting.”

Although other states – like Indiana – can enforce their photo identification laws, Texas has been denied that authority because the federal Voting Rights Act prohibits changes to Texas election laws from being implemented until they are granted “preclearance” by either the DOJ or the federal courts. The Texas Secretary of State’s Office sought preclearance from the DOJ on July 25, 2011, but the Obama Administration has twice delayed the approval process – and is still holding the matter under review. Despite the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision finding that state photo identification laws are constitutional, the DOJ recently refused to preclear South Carolina’s voter identification law in December 2011. Consequently, in an effort to ensure Texas’ photo identification law is implemented as quickly as possible, the state has begun the process of getting judicial preclearance from the federal courts.