Federal judge blocks enforcement of state ballot harvesting law provision targeting help for disabled voters

Those who help disabled Alabama voters fill out or submit absentee ballots can do so without threat of prosecution after a federal judge on Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit challenging the state’s ballot harvesting law.

Several voting, disability and civil rights groups filed the lawsuit in April, contending the law, which makes it a crime to receive payment or pay someone to distribute or collect absentee ballot applications, violates voters’ rights to choose who gives them assistance with voting.

Chief U.S. District Court Judge R. David Proctor narrowed the lawsuit’s scope to only include voters who are “blind, disabled, or illiterate voters.”

The groups claimed the Alabama law is vague in defining what constitutes a payment, and that non-profit organizations were concerned that volunteers could be prosecuted under the new state law.




https://www.al.com/politics/2024/09/federal-judge-blocks-enforcement-of-state-ballot-harvesting-law-provision-targeting-help-for-disabled-voters.html