By Mike Cason
The U.S. Department of Justice has weighed in on a federal lawsuit challenging a new Alabama law that criminalizes certain forms of assistance with absentee voting, actions that supporters of the law call ballot harvesting.
On Monday, the DOJ filed a statement of interest in the lawsuit challenging SB1, which passed the Legislature this year. Gov. Kay Ivey signed the bill on March 20.
SB1, a top priority for the Republican-controlled Legislature this year, made it a crime to distribute prefilled absentee ballot applications or to turn in an absentee ballot application for another voter unless that voter had a medical emergency. The law made it a felony to pay someone or to receive payment to request, collect, complete, or deliver absentee ballot applications.
Supporters of the bill said it was needed to stop ballot harvesting, the distribution and collection of absentee ballot applications by third parties to influence elections.
SB1 included language taken from Section 208 of the federal Voting Rights Act, which says that voters who are blind, disabled, or unable to read or write can receive help with voting from a person of their choice except their employer or an agent of their employer or labor union.
But civil rights groups and other advocates said SB1 violates Section 208 because its restrictions prohibit the disabled voters covered by Section 208 from receiving assistance from someone of their choice. Democrats opposed the bill in the Legislature.
The federal lawsuit filed by the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, Greater Birmingham Ministries, the League of Women Voters of Alabama, and the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program also alleges that SB1 imposes criminal liabilities on the organizations that seek to help the voters covered by Section 208. The lawsuit seeks a preliminary injunction to block the law from taking effect.
Defendants in the case include Attorney General Steve Marshall, Secretary of State Wes Allen, and the state’s district attorneys. The attorney general has asked the court to dismiss the case.
The state’s lawyers said SB1 does not violate Section 208 because the federal law does not prohibit states from restricting the disabled voters covered by Section 208 in their choice of who can help them vote. The state’s lawyers argued that states could add restrictions in addition to the voter’s employer or labor union representative, saying that “Congress did not intend to give the voter boundless options.”
The DOJ, in its statement of interest filed Monday, said the state’s lawyers are incorrect that states can add new restrictions on who disabled voters covered by Section 208 can choose to help them. The DOJ said it has has authority to enforce the Voting Rights Act and therefore substantial interest in a case involving an interpretation of Section 208. It said state laws that conflict with the federal law are preempted.
“Defendants are wrong that federal law permits restrictions beyond those provided in Section 208,” the DOJ said. “Accordingly, this Court should either read SB 1 as limited by Section 208, or find that, to the extent that SB 1 conflicts with Section 208, SB 1 is preempted.”
The lawsuit is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. Secretary of State Allen, a defendant in the case, has said SB1 will be in effect for the general election in November.
