FIG LEAVES are often draped over controversial laws coming out of the Republican-dominated legislature in Texas. But when a judge takes a closer look, the reality of the legislation tends to be laid bare fairly quickly. In March, Texas's solicitor general struggled, during a hearing at the Supreme Court, to explain how onerous regulations that have closed three-quarters of the state’s abortion clinics are actually a boon to women’s reproductive health. And despite repeated losses in federal courts, the Lone Star state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, stands resolutely by a 2011 voter-identification law that could keep 600,000 minority and young Texans away from the polls in November. The law, Mr Paxton says, is necessary to protect the integrity of elections. On May 2nd, the Supreme Court signalled it may step in to evaluate that counterintuitive proposition if a lower court does not resolve the matter by July 20th. New voter-ID laws have come to much of America over the past decade. Eighteen states request a photo ID to vote (though nine of those permit alternative forms of identification in a pinch), while a non-photo ID is acceptable in 15 more. In 17 states, including New York and California, voters can pull the lever without showing any document at all. Red states tend to flash the red light at the polls, and the rules in Texas are the strictest in the country. In order to exercise the franchise, Texans must produce one of seven forms of identification, including a Texas driver’s licence, passport, military ID or election identification certificate (issued to applicants who have documents confirming their citizenship and eligibility to vote). University IDs don’t count, but gun licences do. People who show up empty-handed on election day may still vote, but their ballot will be destroyed unless they pay a visit to the registrar’s office within six days to prove their identity with one of the acceptable forms of identification. There are very few exceptions: only voters with religious objections to having their photo taken and those who are disabled or are victims of a natural disaster may vote without identification. So, “my licence was ripped apart in a tornado” could get you into the voting booth, but “I’m a college kid with an out-of-state driver’s licence and an ID from the University of Texas” will not.

From 2000 to 2015, according to the New York Times, the 2011 voter-ID law could have prevented “no more than three or four infractions” qualifying as voter fraud. Yet Mr Paxton insists the rules are necessary to “safeguard the integrity of our elections process” and are “essential to preserving our democracy”. Judges have found quite the opposite. When the law was first challenged in federal district court in the weeks before the 2014 election, Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos struck it down as a violation of the 1st, 14th, 15th and 24th amendments. In her 147-page opinion, Judge Ramos noted "a clear and disturbing pattern of discrimination in the name of combating voter fraud in Texas”. Blacks and Latinos, she noted, are much more likely to lack the required identification and thus would be disproportionately roped out of the voting booth. The Texas law, she concluded, “not only had the effect of discriminating against minorities, but was designed to do so” and constituted a “poll tax”. Judge Ramos’s ruling was quickly stayed by a three-judge panel on the Fifth Circuit court of appeals on the grounds that it caused too much confusion in the run-up to the November vote. A majority on the Supreme Court then refused to step into the fray, prompting a vigourous dissent from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who pulled an all-nighter to write her opinion that was joined by two colleagues. “[R]acial discrimination in elections in Texas is no mere historical artifact”, she wrote, and the law “risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters.”

In August 2015, a three-judge panel on the Fifth Circuit court of appeals narrowed the breadth of the district court’s ruling but found that the law was discriminatory in effect and violated the Voting Rights Act. But that panel did not put the law on hold. Now the full panoply of the Fifth Circuit—a whopping 15 judges—is set to rehear the case at the request of Texas officials. As this is one of America’s most conservative appeals courts, prospects are rather robust that a majority will uphold the law and let it remain in effect for the presidential election in November. But in its order this week, the justices instructed their 15 junior colleagues in Louisiana to get the ball rolling. “The court recognizes the time constraints the parties confront in light of the scheduled elections in November, 2016”, the justices wrote. “If, on or before July 20, 2016, the court of appeals has neither issued an opinion on the merits of the case nor issued an order vacating or modifying the current stay order, an aggrieved party may seek interim relief from this court by filing an appropriate application.”

The procedural flurry in Veasey v Abbott will likely come to a head this summer. If the Fifth Circuit tarries and fails to rule on the matter by July 20th or meets the deadline and says the law is fine, civil rights groups opposed to the restrictions will almost certainly ask the justices to consider the voter-ID law once again. That will set up another potential 4-4 split, a fresh reminder of the missing ninth justice that America’s 45th president will—if the Senate stays true to its word—get to appoint.