Alabama Voters with Disabilities Can Still Receive Help with Absentee Ballots, Judge Rules
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A judge in Alabama today partially blocked a controversial state law that makes it illegal to help voters request absentee ballots. Voters who are blind, disabled or illiterate will continue to be allowed to receive assistance when applying for absentee ballots for the 2024 election.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall (R) has appealed this decision to 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Signed into law in March by Governor Kay Ivey (R), Senate Bill 1 (SB 1) severely restricts voter assistance with criminal penalties. In particular, the submission restriction makes it a felony to return another person’s absentee ballot application, and the payment and gift provisions bar third parties from accepting or providing payment or gifts for assisting voters at any step of the absentee voting process.
Civil rights organizations brought a lawsuit shortly after challenging these two provisions, among others. They argued that SB 1 violates Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), a federal law that allows blind, disabled and illiterate voters to receive voter assistance.
Judge R. David Proctor agreed today, writing “[t]he court easily concludes, after reviewing its language, that SB 1 unduly burdens the rights of Section 208 voters to make a choice about who may assist them in obtaining and returning an absentee ballot.”
Judge Proctor determined that the federal VRA preempts state law, meaning the submission restriction and payment and gift provisions will not be enforced against blind, disabled or illiterate voters this November. Those voters will continue to receive the assistance they need to cast a ballot.
The plaintiffs had also asked the court to block SB 1 on the basis that it restricts free speech and association and violates the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause by being overly vague. Furthermore, they alleged that the law violates the Help America Vote Act because it makes it a crime for one of the plaintiffs, the Alabama Disability Advocacy Program, to receive federal funds to assist voters with disabilities.
Judge Proctor rejected these arguments, allowing the rest of SB 1 to stand.
Original Post, April 4
Today, civil, voting and disability rights groups filed a new lawsuit challenging Alabama’s new voter suppression law that criminalizes voter assistance. This law is the latest Republican-led piece of legislation that attacks the practice of helping voters with their absentee ballots.
Signed into law last month, Senate Bill 1 makes it illegal for anyone other than close family members or cohabitants to help someone request, fill out or return an absentee ballot. The law has an exception for voters with print disabilities, which impair their ability to read or write, but a new lawsuit says its vague provisions do not sufficiently protect low literacy voters, those who are blind or voters with disabilities.
The new lawsuit, filed on behalf of Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, Greater Birmingham Ministries, League of Women Voters of Alabama and Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program alleges that the new voter suppression law violates the U.S. Constitution, Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act and the Help America Vote Act.
“This extreme law is the latest development in Alabama’s long history of restricting the political engagement of Black voters and other marginalized communities,” the ACLU stated in a press release Thursday morning. As the complaint explains, the new law makes it a crime to even provide a stamp to someone distributing absentee ballot applications.
The ACLU of Alabama stated that the law’s “cruel and unlawful restrictions” particularly harm Black voters, elderly voters, incarcerated voters, voters with disabilities and low-literacy voters as well as civic engagement groups helping to ensure Alabamians vote. The plaintiffs are asking the court to block the law.
Currently, another lawsuit in Alabama is pending in federal court challenging Alabama’s inaccessible absentee voting system for those who are blind or have print disabilities. Laws limiting voter assistance are currently being challenged in Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio as well.
