Voting rights groups sue Alabama over blocking assistance for absentee ballots
Source: The Guardian
Thu 4 Apr 2024 17.37 EDT
A group of Alabama civil rights and voting rights organizations filed a federal lawsuit against the state on Thursday to block enforcement of a new law that criminalizes some kinds of voter assistance with absentee ballots.
Last month, Kay Ivey, the Alabama governor, signed into law Senate Bill 1, which she said targets “ballot harvesting”. The law makes it a crime to request or collect an absentee ballot for someone other than close family and to fill out or mail an application or ballot for someone else. It specifically targets those who pay for assistance in the absentee ballot process with a potential felony punishable by up to 20 years.
“Among its defects, SB 1 makes it 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,” the plaintiff’s filing states.
The plaintiffs, which include the ACLU, Southern Poverty Law Center and other Alabama-based groups, noted that laws criminalizing assistance with voter registration or voting were a common tactic of white supremacist governments in Alabama before passage of the Voting Rights Act and have been previously blocked by federal courts as effectively a literacy test to vote.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/04/alabama-sued-voter-assistance-absentee-ballots
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