FILE – Alabama Secretary of State, Wes Allen speaks during the inauguration ceremony on the steps of the Alabama State Capital, Jan. 16, 2023, in Montgomery, Ala. A day after being sworn in last month, Allen sent a letter informing the Electronic Registration Information Center, a voluntary system known as ERIC, of the state’s exit after criticizing the program during his campaign. (AP Photo/Butch Dill, File)AP
Alabama has three days to restore active voting status for thousands of people who were purged from the state’s voter rolls, a federal judge ruled today.
U.S. District Judge Anna M. Manasco today issued an order instructing Secretary of State Wes Allen to send letters to everyone who was wrongly deemed ineligible, notifying them of their legal right to vote in the Nov. 5 election.
“For decades, federal law has given states a hard deadline to complete systematic purges of ineligible persons from voter rolls: no later than ninety days before a federal election,” wrote Manasco, who was appointed to the federal bench by Donald Trump in 2020.
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The judge wrote that Allen’s office “blew the deadline when he announced a purge program” just 84 days before the 2024 presidential election.
Manasco also ordered Allen, a Republican, to notify Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office about the names erroneously referred to his office for investigation, and to issue a press release about the court’s ruling.
After a hearing at the Hugo Black Federal Courthouse in downtown Birmingham, Manasco on Tuesday night ordered Alabama and Allen to stop his program to flag possible cases of noncitizens registering to vote. The program purged more than 3,000 people from voter rolls and referred them to the Alabama Attorney General’s Office for possible prosecution. Of those, more than 2,074 have since been deemed eligible to vote.
The U.S. Department of Justice along with civil rights groups sued, alleging that Allen and Alabama were violating the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 which halts changes to voting rules beginning 90 days before an election.
After further discussion with lawyers for both sides, Judge Manasco entered her ruling granting a temporary restraining order.
In her order, she noted that in addition to blowing the 90-day deadline, Allen “later admitted that his purge list included thousands of United States citizens (in addition to far fewer noncitizens, who are ineligible to vote).”
The judge said her order does not stop Allen from removing the names of people who are ineligible to vote by reason of criminal conviction, mental incapacity, death, or because of “individualized information about noncitizenship.”
Allen has made election integrity a key issue in his office, following a platform of many of his Republican counterparts around the country.
The Associated Press reports that incidents of noncitizens voting in federal elections are rare.
The ruling is a victory to the DOJ and civil rights groups, who initiated two lawsuits to block Allen’s initiative.
“No U.S. citizen should be afraid to vote, and we are proud to have defended Alabamians ahead of the upcoming election,” said Kate Huddleston, a senior legal counsel at Campaign Legal Center, a non-profit advocacy organization which represented several civil rights groups in the case. “Today’s court decision helps protect Alabama citizens’ freedom to register and vote without concerns about government interference or intimidation.”
Michelle Kanter Cohen, policy director and senior counsel for the Fair Election Center, also noted the high error rate in the program and the lack of clear commutation to voters who were erroneously flagged for removal.
While letters were sent to them notifying of their negative status, no letters were made to correct the error. The judge’s ruling changes that.
“This has been understandably confusing and intimidating for voters, and did not provide the information that naturalized citizens need in order to understand their rights,” Cohen said in a statement. “The evidence in court—which showed over a 60% error rate in the state’s list—underscores the importance of the National Voter Registration Act to protect voters from last-minute threats to their voting rights. This is a win for voters and for all Alabamians who value a fair and free election.”
Allen’s office declined to comment to AL.com this afternoon.
The judge’s order expires immediately after the Nov. 5 election. Manasco declined to extend the injunction or comment on arguments that the Secretary of State’s program is discriminatory or designed to disenfranchise legal voters.
To the contrary, she said the state’s correction that restored voter status to some of the people showed that officials made an attempt to be fair.
AL.com reporter Howard Koplowitz contributed to this story.
