HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Governor Kay Ivey signed a Ballot Collecting Ban into law today. Ballot collecting mainly focuses on absentee voting where a third-party will manage submitting the ballot on behalf of the voter. Now, no one other than the absentee voter can submit their ballot.
Senate Bill One, or SB1, prohibits any person from ordering, requesting, collecting, prefilling, obtaining, or delivering an absentee ballot application or absentee ballot of a voter in certain circumstances and would provide for exceptions. Ivey shared that this ban will help strengthen the fairness and integrity of state elections.
FOX54 spoke with a few local advocacy groups who share that this new ban is a major concern.
Alabama NAACP State President Benard Simelton says, "Before this bill, we could help a person not only get their ballot, but could help them, you know, fill it out, not ballot for them, but assist them. It further diminishes our ability to help people who need help with voting."
Lift Our Vote co-founder Jessica Fortune Barker shares that, "With SB1 and the restrictive parameters that it now sets in place and the fact that it would criminalize people like me, I don't even have an arrest, like I've never been in trouble with the law. It's a know that by me assisting someone in my community with the absentee ballot application that I could face criminal charges like, to me, that significantly impacts our community."
For Fortune Barker, this is just another form of voter suppression. "So me, we must really identify it and call it for what it is, which is a form of voter suppression, and with Alabama being a state with, you know, a history of discrimination when it comes to access in the ballot box, we have to look at bills such as SB1 as a setback to the work that has been done over decades to protect the rights of all voters."
Secretary of State Wes Allen explained that this is all about protecting the absentee process. "I want to be very clear. We must protect the absentee voting process because a lot of people depend on it. We've got to make sure we protect it. It amends the old law. And it basically says that any voter that needs assistance, that chooses to ask for assistance can receive assistance from any person that they so choose. But, the voter has to return their own application. They cannot have someone return it for them."
READ SB1 AS ENACTED BELOW