Legal challenge against new Alabama law on ballot harvesting citing First Amendment violation

A group of civil rights organizations has filed a lawsuit against a new Alabama law that criminalizes some forms of absentee voter assistance.

The lawsuit — filed by the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, Greater Birmingham Ministries, the League of Women Voters of Alabama, and the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program — claims that the law criminalizing people who receive payment or pay someone to distribute or collect absentee ballot applications is in violation of the First and 14th Amendments of the Constitution, the Voting Rights Act, and the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

“SB1 takes Alabama backwards as it violates the law, restricts our basic Constitutional Amendment rights, obliterates freedom of speech,” Benard Simelton, president of the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, said in a press release. “It marginalizes voters’ access to the ballot box.”

The lawsuit claims that the new law negatively targets “historically disenfranchised communities” that rely on civic leaders for voter assistance.

The new law, which was signed by Gov. Kay Ivey (R-AL) on March 20, would make it a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison for anyone who receives a payment or gift “to distribute, order, request, collect, complete, pre-fill, or deliver an absentee ballot application for another voter.” Those who pay someone to engage in voter assistance face a punishment of up to 10 years in prison. The lawsuit ponders if punishments could be extended to nonprofit organizations that provide voters with stamps or stickers.

“Nonprofit organizations … regularly provide volunteers with items that include the organizations’ message or logo, and/or enable volunteers to provide assistance with absentee ballot applications by providing items like pens, postage, envelopes, and gas cards,” the lawsuit says. “The vagueness of the term ‘gift’ is substantial, not only because it imposes steep criminal penalties based on an undefined term but also because it can be read as sweeping in expressive conduct and associational activity that implicates Plaintiffs’ core political speech.”

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The lawsuit also argues the new legislation is an act of voter suppression, which will silence members of the black community.

“For almost as long as the Fifteenth Amendment has guaranteed the right to vote for Black people and others regardless of race or color, Alabama has employed restrictions on assisting voters, including imprisoning volunteers and organizers for assisting voters, and employing other voter suppression tactics to both silence and punish Black community leaders and disenfranchise Black and other voters of color,” the lawsuit notes.