Bishop T.D. Jakes is using his voice to speak out against the very controversial Texas Voter ID law, the Texas legislature passed Senate Bill 14 (SB 14) into law in 2011 in a bid to curb voter fraud. It requires voters seeking to cast their ballots in person to present photo identification, such as a Texas driver’s or gun license, a military ID or a passport according to votetexas.gov. The law is described as one of the strictest voter identification laws in the country.
Jakes says the law is needless and frustrating, but the law may end up galvanizing minority communities and pushing them to the polls which would be a positive.
“The stats show that there are very few people who violated the right to vote through inappropriate, fraudulent behavior and so it’s a needless law,” Jakes said. “I’m very hopeful that more people will exercise their right to vote in response to being threatened, that generally galvanizes our base in a way that I think is very, very important,” he added.