Judge limits scope of lawsuit challenging Alabama restrictions on help for absentee ballot applications
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A federal judge has sided with the state of Alabama in narrowing the scope of a lawsuit challenging a new law that criminalizes some ways of helping other people to apply for an absentee ballot.
Chief U.S. District Judge David Proctor ruled Wednesday that civic groups can pursue just one of their claims: that the law’s ban on gifts or payment for application assistance violates the Voting Rights Act’s assurances that blind, disabled or low-literacy voters can get help from a person of their choice. The judge granted the state’s request to dismiss the other claims raised in the lawsuit.
Alabama is one of several Republican-led states imposing new limits on voter assistance. State Republicans said they’re needed to combat voter fraud. The federal lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, the Legal Defense Fund and the Campaign Legal Center says it “turns civic and neighborly voter engagement into a serious crime.”
The new law, originally known as Senate Bill 1, makes it illegal to distribute an absentee ballot application that is prefilled with information such as the voter’s name, or to return another person’s absentee ballot application. And it created a felony, punishable by up to 20 years in prison, to give or receive a payment or a gift “for distributing, ordering, requesting, collecting, completing, prefilling, obtaining, or delivering a voter’s absentee ballot application.”
Proctor said the organizations made a plausible claim that the restriction on compensation “would unduly burden a voter’s selection of a person to assist them in voting.” Plaintiffs said their paid staff members or volunteers, who are given gas money or food, could face prosecution for helping a voter with an application.
“A blind, disabled, or illiterate voter may require assistance ordering, requesting, obtaining, completing, and returning or delivering an absentee ballot application. Such assistance is guaranteed by Section 208, but it is now criminalized under SB 1 when done by an assistor paid or given anything of value to do so, or when the assistor provides any gift or payment to a voter,” Proctor wrote.
The new law has forced voter outreach groups to stop their work ahead of the general election. Alabama voters wishing to cast an absentee ballot in the Nov. 5 election have until Oct. 31 to hand deliver their absentee application. The deadline is two days earlier if they are mailing the application.
Kathy Jones of the League of Women Voters of Alabama said last month that the group has “basically had to stand down” from helping people with absentee ballot applications because of the uncertainty and fear.
Alabama had asked to have lawsuit dismissed in its entirety. The state attorney general’s office did not immediately comment on the decision.
“We are glad that the court recognized the rights of blind, disabled, and low-literacy voters in this order and that our claim under the Voting Rights Act will proceed,” lawyers for plaintiffs said in a joint statement Friday. “While we are disappointed that the court dismissed some of our other important claims, we intend to do everything we can in this case (and beyond) to ensure Alabamians can participate in our democracy fully and freely.”
The plaintiffs include the NAACP of Alabama, the League of Women Voters, the Greater Birmingham Ministries and the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program.
Court considers halting Trump’s mass firings of federal employees
A federal judge in San Francisco hears arguments in a case challenging the Trump administration's firings of thousands of probationary employees — those in their first year or so on the job.
ICE will reopen a major detention center in New Jersey as it eyes a broader expansion
The Trump administration is expanding its immigration detention capacity, reopening a 1,000-bed detention center in New Jersey and adding beds at other privately owned facilities around the country.
Martin Marty, leading scholar of American religion, dies at 97
Martin Marty, one of the foremost interpreters of religion in American public life, died on Tuesday. He was 97 years old.
2 years after Greece’s deadliest train crash, victims and families await answers
On Feb. 28, 2023, a passenger train and freight train collided, leaving 57 dead. New evidence suggests many may not have been killed by the crash itself, but by a fire that followed.
Trump says he doesn’t see need for U.S. security guarantees to end Ukraine-Russia war
In a meeting with the British Prime Minister, Trump said reaching a peace deal would be the "difficult part." He said security would be made easier by a U.S. deal with Ukraine on critical minerals.
Andrew Tate, facing rape and trafficking charges in Romania, is back in the U.S.
The Tate brothers have been allowed to leave Romania, where they were charged with human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal group to sexually exploit women. They arrived in Florida on Thursday.