The Alabama Senate Tuesday approved a bill that would criminalize some forms of absentee voting assistance to have more aggressive penalties for “ballot-harvesting.”
SB 1, sponsored by Sen. Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, would make it illegal for someone to “knowingly” provide an absentee ballot application with pre-filled information, with exceptions for emergency medical care.
“This is a bill about voting rights and the integrity of our elections in the state of Alabama and this bill is and should be a bill for every Alabamian,” said Gudger.
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The bill passed 27-8 on party lines, after a nearly three-hour filibuster from Democrats who said the bill would make it much more difficult for people with disabilities in rural areas to vote.
Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison, D-Birmingham, said she helped at nursing homes during the pandemic with applications if they said they needed help.
“You want to call that harvesting, bring on the harvest because these were a group of elderly senior citizens that needed help,” she said. “To help them fill out their applications.”
Gudger’s bill makes it a Class C felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for a person to receive payment or a gift for “distributing, ordering, requesting, collecting, completing, prefilling, obtaining or delivering” a voter’s application. A person who knowingly pays or provides a gift to a “third party to distribute, order, request, collect, prefill, complete, obtain or deliver” an application for an absentee ballot would be guilty of a Class B felony, punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
The bill includes exceptions for some disabilities and does not impact members of the armed services stationed overseas.
Four amendments to the bill were also added on the floor. The amendments allow some handwritten requests; allow the marking of which election the ballot is for; require a person must declare they are not barred from voting because of a felony or that their voting right has been restored rather than they have not been convicted of any disqualifying felonies; and makes allowances for those who work for utilities in cases of needing to travel to provide mutual aid.
Democrats focused on the impact to political campaigns and voters, especially in rural communities.
Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, said that he knocks on doors in his rural districts and meets people who are disabled and has helped them fill out applications.
“If I have an absentee application with me at that time, ‘Here you go,’” he said.
Speaking to reporters after the vote, Gudger said that he had done research and believed that voter fraud was occurring, but he did not have the numbers immediately available. Right-leaning think tank the Heritage Foundation has found only 25 convictions for voter fraud in Alabama in 24 years.
“It’s happening all over,” he said. “They’re just not being sentenced to jail, and so that’s an issue that is happening everywhere, and no one’s doing anything about it.”
Gudger said the goal was to add more “teeth” to the penalties.
“You have to have something that’s strong enough to deter people from doing something that’s wrong,” he said.
