Judge Anna Manasco said that when Secretary of State Wes Allen, an elected Republican, deactivated more than 3,200 registered voters because of questions about their citizenship, the move violated a provision in the National Voter Registration Act that bans the systematic removal of registered voters within 90 days of an election.

Allen “blew the deadline when he announced a purge program to begin eighty-four days before the 2024 General Election,” Manasco wrote.

In August, Allen had notified 3,251 registered voters who he said had been assigned alien registration numbers that they would be moved to “inactive” status on the state’s voter roll until they could confirm their citizenship. The Department of Homeland Security assigns alien registration numbers to noncitizens, who could eventually gain citizenship. Allen had argued that the DHS, the predominant record-keeper of citizenship status changes, was uncooperative with identifying which Alabamians with alien registration numbers had been naturalized.

The Department of Justice responded with a lawsuit, saying Allen had initiated a systematic removal of registered voters that incidentally deactivated hundreds of registered voters who had become citizens.

Court papers revealed that Allen’s program was flawed in that it had resulted in about 2,000 citizens being deactivated who were then forced to take steps to reregister to vote. At least one of the people who received a notice that he was deactivated said in an affidavit that he also never had an alien registration number and was always a citizen.

The program also resulted in at least 106 people asking Allen to remove them from the voter rolls, signaling they were ineligible to vote.

The lawsuit is one of two the DOJ has brought over the NVRA provision that bans certain voter roll cleanup activity during the quiet period before an election.

The department also filed suit last week against Virginia for announcing in August that it was continuing a program to identify and clear alleged noncitizens from its voter registration list.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) has vowed to fight the lawsuit, calling it “a desperate attempt to attack the legitimacy of the elections in the commonwealth.” Youngkin said the state’s process of screening for noncitizens has been in place since 2006 and does not violate the NVRA.