A group of civil rights organizations filed a lawsuit Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama against a new Alabama law criminalizing some forms of absentee voting assistance, alleging it amounts to voter suppression.
Gov. Kay Ivey signed SB 1, sponsored by Sen. Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, on March 20.
“Voter assistance is a vital means of political expression in Alabama that allows civic leaders to promote and build political power among historically disenfranchised communities,” the lawsuit said. “And yet, the state has historically and consistently engaged in efforts to restrict voter assistance, including through criminal prosecutions of groups and individuals seeking to create political change through civic engagement.”
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A message seeking comment was left with the Alabama attorney general’s office Thursday morning.
In a statement, the Secretary of State’s office said they could not comment on the substance of the litigation and directed questions to the attorney general’s office.
“I am dedicated to ensuring fair, secure, and transparent elections,” wrote Secretary of State Wes Allen in the Thursday statement. “SB 1 provides Alabama voters with strong protection against activists who profit from the absentee elections process. I stand firm in my support of SB 1 because now, under Alabama law, Alabama votes are not for sale.”
The bill makes it a Class C felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for a person to receive a payment or gift for “distributing, ordering, requesting, collecting, completing, prefilling, obtaining or delivering” an absentee ballot application. A person who knowingly pays or provides a gift to a “third party to distribute, order, request, collect, prefill, complete, obtain or deliver” could face a Class B felony, punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
The plaintiffs argue that volunteers who provide assistance to voters with disabilities could be punished for providing a stamp or sticker to a neighbor. It also alleges that a person dropping off a ballot application could face a misdemeanor charge.
“Nonprofit organizations … regularly provide volunteers with items that include the organizations’ message or logo, and/or enable volunteers to provide assistance with absentee ballot applications by providing items like pens, postage, envelopes, and gas cards,” the lawsuit says. “The vagueness of the term ‘gift’ is substantial, not only because it imposes steep criminal penalties based on an undefined term but also because it can be read as sweeping in expressive conduct and associational activity that implicates Plaintiffs’ core political speech.”
The complaint also cites Alabama’s long history of voter suppression.
“For almost as long as the Fifteenth Amendment has guaranteed the right to vote for Black people and others regardless of race or color, Alabama has employed restrictions on assisting voters, including imprisoning volunteers and organizers for assisting voters, and employing other voter suppression tactics to both silence and punish Black community leaders and disenfranchise Black and other voters of color,” the lawsuit says.
Gudger said Thursday morning that he wasn’t scared of the judicial branch looking at the law, but disliked taxpayer money being used to defend it.
“I think it’s a positive thing, and we’ll see where it goes,” he said. “Again, this is not something that’s just happening for one party. It was for all parties and all people in the state.”
According to the Heritage Foundation, a right-leaning think tank that tracks voter fraud, there have only been 25 cases of voter fraud in the state since 2000. About 1.4 million votes were cast in Alabama’s 2022 elections.
The plaintiffs want the court to “declare that the challenged provisions of SB 1 violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, Section 208 of the (Voting Rights Act), and the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution and Help America Vote Act.”
The plaintiffs are the League of Women Voters of Alabama, Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, Greater Birmingham Ministries and Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program. They are represented by Campaign Legal Center, Legal Defense Fund, Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama and Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program.
“SB 1 takes Alabama backwards as it violates the law, restricts our basic constitutional amendment rights, (and) obliterates freedom of speech,” wrote Benard Simelton, president of the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, in the Thursday news release. “It marginalizes voters’ access to the ballot box.”
This story was updated at 11:30 with comment from the Secretary of State’s office.
