Texas tells court its voter ID law does not discriminate John Hughes, the state's attorney, said Texans in rural areas are used to driving long distances. "People who want to vote already have an ID or can easily get it," he said. The exchange highlighted the key dispute in a historic case that played out in final arguments Friday before a three-judge panel in U.S. District Court in Washington. The issue is whether the 2011 law violates the federal Voting Rights Act by making it harder for minorities to cast ballots. The stakes go far beyond Texas. For the Obama administration, the Texas law and similar legislation passed in other states threaten to disenfranchise millions of Latino and African American voters. But for supporters of the legislation, the requirements are common sense solutions to voter fraud. The jammed courtroom underscored the magnitude of the case on Friday. Among the spectators were attorney Stephen Pollak, who helped write the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was designed to protect minority voters, and Thomas Perez, the head of the Justice Department's civil rights division. Pollack also defended the law before the Supreme Court. Three judges heard the case because voting rights act cases must be decided by a panel of three federal judges. Any appeal - and either side is expected to appeal an adverse ruling - will go straight to the Supreme Court, bypassing an appeals court. Texas has a history of voter discrimination, so the law signed last year by its Republican governor, Rick Perry, had to be cleared by the Justice Department. The department blocked the law, saying it would disproportionately affect Latino voters. Texas sued the department, leading to the week-long trial that ended on Friday. Much of the debate over the law has focused on the issue of exactly who would be affected by it. The burden is on Texas to persuade the panel that the voter ID law is not discriminatory, and on Friday, Hughes, the state's attorney, argued that there is no evidence, statistical or otherwise, that it is. That argument, however, was received skeptically by one of the jurists, David S. Tatel, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. "The record tells us there is a subset of registered voters who lack ID," said Tatel, who was appointed in 1994 by President Bill Clinton. We have to think about the economic burden and the fact that minorities are disproportionately poor. Tatel added that the record showed that minorities in Texas are more likely than whites not to have cars and to live up to 120 miles away from the closest place to get voter ID documents. Under the Texas law, the minimum cost to obtain a voter ID for a state resident without a copy of his birth certificate would be $22, according to the Justice Department. While the "election identification certificate" needed to vote is free, the state legislature voted down a proposal to allow people to get the documents needed for the voter ID for free.