Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall on Tuesday said the state will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court a federal appeals court ruling allowing curbside voting in the Nov. 3 election.
“While we welcome the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals decision to grant the State’s emergency stay request so that Alabama’s absentee voting law requirements of a valid photo ID and witnesses remain in effect for the November 3 general election,” Marshall said in a statement. “The appeals court’s decision to allow curbside voting conflicts with State efforts to ensure election security. We will therefore seek a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court as soon as possible.”
U.S. District Judge Abdul Kallon on Sept. 30 ordered the state to do away with the requirement for voters to have two witnesses or a notary sign their absentee ballot, if the voter submits a statement that they have an underlying medical condition that puts them at a heightened risk from COVID-19 and thus, they cannot safely get those additional signatures.
Kallon also ordered Alabama to allow curbside voting, in the counties that choose to do so, but only for the Nov. 3 general election.
A panel of federal appeals court judges on Tuesday reversed parts of Kallon’s ruling regarding absentee voting in the upcoming Nov. 3 elections, but the judges let the previous ruling allowing curbside voting to stand.
The lawsuit, filed by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Southern Poverty Law Center, American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Alabama and Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program, was brought on behalf of several Alabamians with underlying medical conditions.
In his Sept. 30 ruling, Kallon wrote that “the plaintiffs have proved that their fears are justified” and the voting provisions challenged in the lawsuit “unduly burden the fundamental Constitutional rights of Alabama’s most vulnerable voters and violate federal laws designed to protect America’s most marginalized citizens.”
