a Litigation The lawsuit, filed by several advocacy groups, alleges that four people in Alabama were unfairly targeted in a voter roll cleanup operation conducted by the state ahead of November's presidential election.
of Litigation The lawsuit alleges that Secretary of State Wes Allen's voter removal program, which seeks to remove more than 3,000 voters in the state who were previously issued non-citizen identification numbers by the Department of Homeland Security, violates the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), a law that promotes voting rights and makes it easier for people to register to vote.
“The purge program will invalidate and constructively remove thousands of Alabamians from the voter rolls and force them to unnecessarily re-register to vote immediately prior to the November 2024 general election, based solely on Secretary Allen's belief that they were once issued non-citizen identification numbers, even if they subsequently became naturalized citizens and lawfully registered to vote,” the advocacy groups wrote in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also alleges that some voters who were on the removal list were inaccurately added back with false information, forcing them to re-register.
“No American should be denied the freedom to vote, and all Americans, regardless of where they were born, have equal right to vote. Far from protecting Americans' freedom to vote in November's election, Alabama is shamefully intimidating naturalized Americans and illegally removing eligible Americans from its voter rolls,” said Paul Smith, senior vice president of the Campaign Legal Center, an advocacy group.
Last month, several advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, letter Allen criticized the purge plan and called for it to be stopped.
“We call on your office and all other implementing state and local agencies in Alabama to immediately discontinue this program. We further request that the State of Alabama produce documentation related to this program in accordance with the NVRA,” they wrote.
