MONTGOMERY, Ala. — An Alabama state senator has filed a bill that would expand voting rights for Alabamians, but the bill is likely to face an uphill battle in the Republican-controlled legislature.
SB 7, sponsored by Sen. Kirk Hatcher, D-Montgomery, would, among other measures, allow automatic restoration of voting rights in some circumstances; allow for absentee voting without qualification; would allow same day voter registration; require the Secretary of State to maintain a statewide database for elections and voting and create an Alabama Voting Rights Commission with the power to review and block some local government measures that may limit voting access.
Secretary of State Wes Allen said in a statement that there are still several months to go to the start of the session, and they will review all bills prior to the session.
“My focus now is working with our local election officials across our state to administer a fair, secure, and transparent general election in November,” he wrote.
Hatcher was unavailable for comment. Jerome Dees, Alabama Policy Director at the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the groups that worked on the bill, said in a phone cal Monday that the bill was aspirational. He said that pro-democracy and pro-voter citizens in the state have historically been on the defensive.
“My hope is that with SB 7, the Alabama Voting Rights Act Bill, Alabama citizens and Alabama voters now have something to look towards as the model, the ideal of what democracy can and should be in Alabama, a democracy and voting ability that is open and inclusive and accessible, and where voting practices and policies and procedures are protected to ensure that folks from all stripes and walks of life are able to actually cast their ballot,” he said.
Dees wrote in a statement that similar voting rights act bills have been filed across the country.
Under the proposal, voters who had lost voting rights due to a felony conviction (not including treason or impeachment) in state, federal or foreign court would automatically have their rights upon completion of a sentence; a pardon or the successful completion of parole.
Individuals who have met conditions of pardons or parole – excluding payment of court costs, restitution or fees – will be deemed to have completed pardon or parole in terms of voting restoration.
People who were excluded due to a crime of moral turpitude will have their right restored by the State Board of Pardons and Paroles when expressed in the pardon. If otherwise qualified, the person can register or re-register with a copy of the pardon document to their county board of registrars.
The bill would create a state voting rights commission with the power of preclearance, or the ability to review certain election-related decisions — including redistricting and methods of election — made by local governments that have been subject to certain legal action after conceding liability to violating the “Alabama Voting Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, any state or federal civil rights law, the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution concerning a violation of the right to vote, or a pattern, practice, or policy of discrimination against any member of a protected class.” The commission would have the power to stop implementation of policies that it found discriminatory
Alabama was one of several states with histories of voting discrimination that was subject to preclearance under the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The U.S. Department of Justice reviewed changes to Alabama election laws until 2013, when the U.S. Supreme Court gutted Section 5 of the law, which had the preclearance provisions.
Dees said that in Alabama and other states, lawmakers have gerrymandered districts. Alabama saw the closure of many DMVs primarily in predominantly Black counties.
Dees said they want to push back against the attitude “just kind of shrugging our shoulders and saying that this is what it’s always been.”
“The idea of this bill is to be aspirational, to look at what other states have been able to implement,” he said.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is among the organizations that signed onto a letter alleging that the Alabama Secretary of State violated the National Voter Registration Act through removing registered voters who were allegedly noncitizens from the voter rolls.
“I will not bow down to threats from ultra-liberal activist groups who will stop at nothing in their quest to see noncitizens remain on Alabama’s voter rolls,” Allen wrote in a statement in response to the letter.
Uruj Sheikh, NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Equal Justice Works Fellow, said that removing naturalized citizens was discriminatory.
“It’s certainly important to maintain clean voter rolls, that’s important but Alabama can’t unlawfully purge lawfully registered voters,” she said.
The letter alleges that the Secretary of State’s office violated the act through removing voters within 90 days of an election; did not ensure that list maintenance was non-discriminatory and kept eligible voters on the list; and requires more than necessary information.
This article originally appeared in the Alabama Reflector, an independent, nonprofit news outlet. It appears on FOX54.com under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
