Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice that argued the state was removing people from its voter registration list too close to Election Day, according to a court motion filed Wednesday.
Lawyers for Alabama’s attorney general argued that the state’s decision to switch more than 3,000 voters to inactive status was a legal move after the DOJ argued Allen violated a provision of the National Voter Registration Act that implements a “quiet period” in the 90 days before an election.
The Alabama attorneys said the lawsuit should be tossed out because the DOJ, as well as private plaintiffs who are part of the suit, did not identify any violation of the NVRA provision.
The NVRA, a landmark bill signed into law in 1993, requires states to complete “any program the purpose of which is to systematically remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters” before the 90-day quiet period begins.
Allen’s office identified 3,251 people on its voter rolls who could be noncitizens based, in part, on their alien numbers, which the Department of Homeland Security assigns to noncitizens, some of whom could become citizens.
On Aug. 13, which was 84 days before the election, Allen ordered they be reverted to “inactive” voter status. Allen argued he did this only after unsuccessfully seeking help from the federal government, the predominant record-keeper of naturalization.
Allen also ordered election officials to notify the people about their voter status change and to instruct them in a letter to either request they be removed entirely from Alabama’s voter registration list or provide documentation allowing them to be switched back to active status.
DOJ attorneys said that as of Sept. 19, 717 people who were switched to inactive had since submitted appropriate documents to show they are citizens and had their voter status changed back to active. Meanwhile, 106 people asked to be completely removed from Alabama’s voter rolls, signaling they were ineligible to vote.
“Potentially several hundred or even thousands more registered, eligible voters from the list — U.S. citizens — remain in inactive status, stand to be harmed, and risk disenfranchisement just weeks before the upcoming federal election,” DOJ attorneys had argued in their complaint.
Alabama attorneys countered that switching voters to inactive status through a long-running “general,” rather than “systematic,” program is not a violation of the NVRA and does not amount to removing registered voters from the voter rolls entirely.
The Alabama attorneys said those who were made inactive have until 2028 to update their voter registration status by providing additional documentation. That does not amount to requiring the voters to reregister to vote, the attorneys said.
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“Inactive voters are legally registered under State law; their names appear on the list of registered voters,” the attorneys wrote. “They may vote on Election Day by completing an update form (not a registration form) at the polls.”
The DOJ has asked the judge to order Allen to switch all of the voters, except the 106 who responded that they were ineligible to vote, back to active status.
