Alabama cannot remove thousands of people from its voter rolls on the eve of a presidential election, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Anna Manasco, an appointee of President Donald Trump, has blocked efforts by Alabama’s top elections official to remove more than 3,200 suspected non-citizens from voter rolls, at least until after the election. issued a preliminary injunction. Presidential election.
BREAKING NEWS: An Alabama district court just ruled in favor of voter protections in Alabama. Secretary Wes Allen’s last-minute plan for naturalized citizens violates the NVRA’s 90-day provision. More about this here: https://t.co/MfUIAskLW3
— Daniel Lang (@DaniLang_Votes) October 16, 2024
Alabama’s Republican Secretary of State Wes Allen’s office acknowledged in a court filing this week that the list of noncitizens it created was not accurate. The Secretary of State’s chief of staff said in a sworn statement that at least 2,000 of the more than 3,200 people were actually eligible to vote. This means that almost two-thirds of the people on the list accused of being non-citizens were falsely reported. Civil rights groups and the Justice Department had both accused Alabama of violating a federal law that prohibits the systematic removal of voters from rolls within 90 days after a federal election.
“Alabama’s initial splashy announcement was completely misleading,” said Kate Huddleston, an attorney with the Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog group that helped challenge the purge. “It is now clear that 63% of the people on the list were unfairly placed on the list and had time taken away from their lives and had to deal with this issue.”
The Justice Department and groups challenging the plan also said the state uses unreliable methods to flag noncitizens, leaving many voters flagged for removal.
The Justice Department filed a lawsuit Friday against the state of Virginia over a similar program, which has also drawn scrutiny for being inaccurate.
Both lawsuits are based on the National Voter Registration Act, a 1993 federal law that provides a 90-day period before federal elections during which states cannot systematically remove voters from their rolls. This buffer was designed to protect voters from being accidentally removed from the rolls at the last minute without any redress.
On Aug. 13, 84 days before the November election, Allen announced that the state had identified 3,251 people on its roster who at some point received a non-citizen identification number from the Department of Homeland Security. Although he acknowledged that some of these people may have become naturalized citizens, he directed local election officials to require everyone to prove citizenship to vote and criminalized The matter was referred to the state attorney general for possible investigation.
Alabama and Virginia are both part of a small number of states that have loudly touted misleading efforts to remove suspected noncitizens from voter rolls. Their announcements come as Republicans across the country lean into false claims about non-citizen voting, raising doubts about the election results.
In addition to halting removals, Manasco’s order also directs Allen to oversee mailings informing flagged voters that they can vote. The notice must also tell voters that they are not subject to criminal penalties for registering or voting.
Manasco also ordered Allen to notify the attorney general in a letter that several voters sent for further investigation were erroneously included on the list and to identify those voters.
“We have learned from speaking with the plaintiffs and speaking with others in Alabama that this has had a real chill on naturalized voters who have been intimidated and discouraged from registering and voting. ,” Huddleston said. And it’s critical that all Americans have access to the ballot. ”
