A federal panel of three judges is reviewing a controversial Texas law that may limit the number of people who can vote in El Paso.

The law, which passed the state legislature in 2011, aims to lower voter fraud by requiring voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot at a local polling place. On Monday, the Department of Justice blocked the law for being unconstitutional and potentially disenfranchising some voters.

Rudy Hernandez, a member of the League of Latin American Citizens in El Paso and one of five members of the national education committee, teaches El Paso Community College students about the importance of voting, but also said he's worried about the groups most likely to stop voting if the federal panel disagrees with the Department of Justice.

"It's kind of requiring them to pay for the right to vote," Hernandez said. "Particularly with the younger voters, every time you put in an additional impediment or hindrance to their right to vote, they'd rather just not do it. There's also a number of elderly in the rural areas who don't have driver's licenses."

State Representative Joe Pickett was the only legislator representing El Paso to vote in favor of the law when it was still in commission. Pickett told KFOX 14 media partner The El Paso Times that he was thinking of El Paso when he voted and didn't think the law would have much effect in El Paso.

But fellow Democrat Senator Jose Rodriguez disagrees.

"The Department of Justice was able to determine, by the data provided by the state, that there would be so many people Latinos who did not have ID cards, they would essentially be disenfranchised," Rodriguez said, also adding voter fraud might be wiped out if the public made informed opinions when voting. "I think that kind of process would weed out some of the bad apples we've seen lately in El Paso and around the state and country."

The federal panel is also the same panel involved in the Texas re-districting battle.