A coalition of civil rights, voting rights and disability rights organizations are suing Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, Alabama’s 42 District Attorneys and Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen to block Alabama’s recently enacted Senate Bill 1 (SB1). The lawsuit was filed Thursday, April 4.
The new voting regulations will outlaw paid assistance with absentee ballot applications. The new law makes it a misdemeanor to distribute a pre-filled absentee ballot application to a voter or return another voter's completed application. It will also become a felony under the new law to give, or receive, a payment or gift “for distributing, ordering, requesting, collecting, completing, prefilling, obtaining, or delivering a voter’s absentee ballot application.”
When signing SB1 into law in March, Governor Kay Ivey praised the legislation, saying it "will strengthen the fairness and integrity of Alabama elections." Alabama Republicans said the legislation is needed to combat voter fraud through “ballot harvesting,” a term for the collection of multiple absentee ballots.
However, Alabama Democrats have argued that there is no proof that ballot harvesting exists and called it an attempt to suppress voting by absentee ballot. State Dems and several advocacy groups said the legislation is aimed at trying to make it harder for people vote by absentee ballot.
Opponents SB1 now suing to block the new law say it directly targets, drastically restricts, and severely penalizes basic nonpartisan civic engagement efforts that enable all Alabamians to access their right to vote.
The ACLU of Alabama takes issues with the law, which the nonprofit organization says is the among the most restrictive of its kind ever passed, as it criminalizes most forms of helping voters apply for absentee ballots, with felony penalties ranging up to 20 years in prison. The ACLU of Alabama says SB1’s "cruel and unlawful restrictions harm voters who need assistance with their absentee ballot applications — particularly Black voters, elderly voters, incarcerated voters, voters with disabilities, and low-literacy voters — as well as nonpartisan civic engagement groups, including churches, working to help Alabamians participate in the political process."
The nonprofit organization says the passage of SB1 is the latest development in Alabama’s long history of restricting the political engagement of Black voters and other marginalized communities.
Alabama State Conference of the NAACP (Alabama NAACP), Greater Birmingham Ministries (GBM), League of Women Voters of Alabama (LWVAL), and Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program (ADAP) are represented by Campaign Legal Center (CLC), Legal Defense Fund (LDF), Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama (ACLU-AL), and Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program (ADAP) in their suit against the anti-voter law.
The lawsuit challenges SB1 as violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, the Voting Rights Act, and the Help America Vote Act of 2002. Learn more about the lawsuit here.
