Alabama sued over new law criminalizing voter assistance

(CN) — Alabama’s newly enacted ballot harvesting law, considered the most strict in the nation, has come under fire from a coalition of civil rights, voting rights and disability rights organizations that filed a federal lawsuit Thursday to block the bill.

Senate Bill 1, which passed the state Senate on Feb. 13 by a vote of 27-8 and the House on March 7 on a vote of 75-28, was signed into law March 20. 

The substantive portions of the bill require each voter to request his or her own absentee ballot, and prohibit anyone from “collecting, prefilling, completing, obtaining or delivering” ballots on behalf of others. Crucially, it also provides criminal penalties up to a felony conviction and possible prison sentence of 20 years for those found guilty of violating the law. Alabama’s attorney general, secretary of state and 42 district attorneys were named as defendants in the complaint. 

At the time the bill was signed, Governor Kate Ivey issued a statement declaring it would ensure “elections are free and fair.” Secretary of State Wes Allen said the measure “signals to ballot harvesters that Alabama votes are not for sale” while also protecting state voters from casting a ballot “without undue influence.”

But Democratic lawmakers and civil and voting rights organizations disagreed, accusing the state’s Republican supermajority of kowtowing to the Republican National Committee and its so-called “red-meat” agenda while also failing to provide any evidence that ballot harvesting is problematic. 

Thursday’s lawsuit by the ACLU of Alabama, Campaign Legal Center, Legal Defense Fund and Southern Poverty Law Center was filed on behalf of the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, Greater Birmingham Ministries, League of Women Voters of Alabama, and Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program.

The plaintiffs claim the law “directly targets, drastically restricts, and severely penalizes basic nonpartisan civic engagement efforts that enable all Alabamians to access their freedom to vote." They call it a "vague and sweeping statute that turns civic and neighborly voter engagement into a serious crime.” 

Further, they say the law “criminalizes constitutionally protected speech and expressive conduct and disenfranchises disabled voters, senior citizen voters, voters of color, eligible incarcerated voters, and many other Alabamians who depend on assistance to vote.”

As examples of acts that would be illegal under the law, the plaintiffs claim “it would be a crime to provide a postage stamp to a neighbor distributing absentee ballot applications, or for a grandmother to show her appreciation for her grandchild’s assistance in completing or delivering her absentee ballot application by giving them gas money or a token gift like a pie.” 

Claiming the state’s restrictions on absentee voting and voter assistance violate the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Help America Vote Act of 2002, the plaintiffs seek an order barring the state from enforcing the law. 

“This extreme law is the latest development in Alabama’s long history of restricting the political engagement of Black voters and other marginalized communities,” the ACLU said in a statement Thursday morning, adding the law “particularly harms Black voters, elderly voters, incarcerated voters, voters with disabilities and low-literacy voters as well as civic engagement groups helping to ensure Alabamians vote.”

Reportedly, only 12 states do not specify whether someone may return a ballot on behalf of another voter. Nearly half of states and the District of Columbia allow “someone chosen by the voter” to return an absentee ballot “in most cases,” while 13 other states have laws specifying who may return ballots. Alabama is the only state with a law requiring each voter to return their own ballot and preventing anyone else from doing so.

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