A voting ballot. Plaintiffs opposed a stay for Alabama’s absentee ballot assistance law. (Getty Images)
Plaintiffs challenging an Alabama law criminalizing some forms of ballot assistance urged a federal judge Tuesday to not delay a ruling blocking the law as applied to illiterate voters and voters with disabilities.
In a 22-page brief opposing a motion from the Alabama attorney general’s office to put the case on hold, attorneys for the plaintiffs, who include voting rights groups, argued that the state would be unlikely to succeed on the merits of the case.
“Every election, plaintiff organizations help thousands of disabled and low literacy voters who request assistance,” they wrote. “Since this court’s preliminary injunction, plaintiffs have tirelessly worked to respond to countless more requests from such voters before the absentee application window closes at the end of the month. Defendant’s motion to halt that ongoing work fails on every factor.”
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Messages seeking comment were left Wednesday with a spokesperson for the plaintiffs’ attorneys and the attorney general’s office.
The law, sponsored by Sen. Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, makes it a Class C felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for a person to knowingly receive payment for “distributing, ordering, requesting, collecting, completing, prefilling, obtaining or delivering” an absentee ballot application. It would be a Class B felony if a person knowingly pays or provides a gift to a “third party to distribute, order, request, collect, prefill, complete, obtain or deliver.” Class B felonies are punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Republican supporters argued it would stop a practice they referred to as ballot harvesting, but Democratic opponents said the law would make it more difficult for older and disabled voters to cast ballots, especially in rural areas.
U.S. District Judge R. David Proctor last week blocked a portion of the law from going into effect against voters who were blind, illiterate or had some disability. Proctor wrote that the measure was an undue burden on those voters’ ability to select a person to assist them with completing a ballot, as defined in Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act.
The Attorney General’s Office, which is planning an appeal, requested a stay last week, saying that their ability to limit fraud was undercut.
“This Court found it ‘obvious’ that ‘Section 208 voters in Alabama would be deprived of the assistors of their choice due to’ SB 1’s Compensation Provision,” lawyers for the attorney general’s office wrote. “But this finding does not follow either from the evidentiary record or ‘common sense.’”
In the Tuesday filing, the plaintiffs’ attorneys argued that the state could still pursue allegations of voter fraud with Proctor’s ruling in effect.
“Indeed, SB 1 would not stop defendant from pursuing a single offense that they have cited in their briefing or their declarations,” they wrote. “And even if there was any alleged harm to defendant (which there is not), it is outweighed by the clear conflict with federal law.”
They also argued that the plaintiffs would be punished if a stay was granted, writing that the “Defendant has never disputed that SB 1 forecloses entire categories of assistors, including Plaintiffs—nor could he.”
The plaintiffs’ attorneys also wrote that it did not require an evidentiary hearing, which Proctor did not grant at the same time as the preliminary injunction.
“Defendant’s arguments essentially boil down to a disagreement with this Court’s legal conclusion, which is an insufficient reason to insist on an evidentiary hearing,” they wrote.
Proctor had not ruled on the motion as of early Wednesday afternoon.
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