Those who help disabled Alabama voters fill out or submit absentee ballots can do so without threat of prosecution after a federal judge on Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit challenging the state’s ballot harvesting law.
Several voting, disability and civil rights groups filed the lawsuit in April, contending the law, which makes it a crime to receive payment or pay someone to distribute or collect absentee ballot applications, violates voters’ rights to choose who gives them assistance with voting.
Chief U.S. District Court Judge R. David Proctor narrowed the lawsuit’s scope to only include voters who are “blind, disabled, or illiterate voters.”
The groups claimed the Alabama law is vague in defining what constitutes a payment, and that non-profit organizations were concerned that volunteers could be prosecuted under the new state law.
On Tuesday, Proctor issued a preliminary injunction barring Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall from enforcing the law’s provisions affecting blind, disabled and illiterate voters.
Marshall indicated he would appeal the decision to the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
The plaintiffs, which included the the Alabama NAACP, Greater Birmingham Ministries, the League of Women Voters of Alabama and the Alabama Disability Advocates Program, hailed the injunction in a statement issued by their attorneys.
“Nonpartisan civic engagement groups — composed of civic-minded, democracy-loving, everyday Americans — do the hard work of fighting to ensure that every American can access the fundamental freedom to vote,” they said. “We’re glad that the district court has sided with the rights of the voters and is committed to promoting voting accessibility. Our democracy works best when everybody can participate in it, and this ruling prevents the enforcement of a cruel law that would have suppressed the voices of blind, disabled, and low literacy voters. We’re proud of this victory, and we will continue to fight to ensure that all Alabamians can easily exercise their right to vote.”
