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A program initiated by Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen is being challenged in federal court by both the Department of Justice and affected individuals in two separate lawsuits.
Stand Up Mobile, a nonprofit with a mission of empowering Black voters, urged Allen Tuesday to change course and focus on expanding voter participation instead of limiting it.
“Alabama’s top elections official has purged voters from the voter rolls, effectively deregistering them to vote, less than 90 days before the 2024 Presidential Election. This doesn’t just violate federal law, it’s voter suppression plain and simple,” Stand Up Mobile leaders said in a statement Tuesday. “Our elections are safe and secure with multiple layers of safeguards to ensure their integrity. These anti-voter tactics seek to intimidate and suppress voters while sowing doubt in future election outcomes.
“Rather than continuing down this path of creating obstacles for Alabama voters, we urge Secretary of State Allen to devote the remaining days until the election to expanding voter participation. We are better served when all of our citizens are engaged in the political process.”
With 84 days remaining before the general election, Allen announced he had discovered 3,251 individuals were registered to vote in the state who had, at some point, been issued noncitizen identification numbers. These noncitizen numbers can be issued to immigrants residing in the US legally that have not attained citizenship.
Citing the potential that some of the individuals could still be noncitizen and therefore ineligible to vote, Allen announced that the individuals would be purged from the voter rolls
Allen admitted when announcing the program that some of the individuals could have since become naturalized citizens, and said the individuals would be notified of a process to prove their citizenship and regain their registered status.
A coalition of voting rights groups warned Allen that they intended to sue his office in response to the purge, citing the National Voter Registration Act, which requires purges of the voter rolls to occur more than 90 days before an election.
“Section 8(c)(2)(A) of the NVRA (the “90-Day Provision”) requires that states complete ‘any program the purpose of which is to systematically remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters’ ‘not later than 90 days prior to the date of a . . . general election for Federal office,” the coalition wrote. “Alabama may not take any steps to implement any program to systematically remove voters within this 90-day ‘quiet period.’ You announced your purge program on August 13, 2024—only 84 days before in-person voting on November 5, even fewer before the start of absentee voting, and undoubtedly within the ‘quiet period.’”
When Allen refused to budge, they sued to stop the program, with the Department of Justice following with its own lawsuit soon after on the same grounds.
Following the lawsuits, Allen has stood by the program, but has not commented further citing a policy not to discuss litigation involving the office.
According to the latest data from the secretary of state’s website, there are more than 3.7 million registered voters in Alabama, and 1.4 million ballots were cast in the 2022 general election. The number of potential noncitizens identified represents just 0.09 percent of registered voters and 0.22 percent of total ballots cast in the 2022 election.
