Under the Trump administration, the Department of Justice appears to have recalibrated its priorities, saying that the federal government appreciates Alabama’s effort to maintain fraud-free voter rolls.
The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a motion to voluntarily dismiss its lawsuit against Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen, who led an initiative to purge noncitizens from voter rolls.
According to AL.com, Allen’s move risked the disenfranchisement of American citizens.
As part of the state’s voter purge, Allen sent a list of every registered voter who had previously received a non-citizen identification number to state Attorney General Steve Marshall, who
was also named as a defendant in the Department of Justice lawsuit.
However, neither Allen nor Marshall seem to have anticipated the possibility that some people on the list had since naturalized and become U.S. citizens.
“It subjects registered, eligible voters identified under the Purge Program to intimidation in the form of a letter threatening them with unjustified criminal 61 prosecution and requires them to re-register under the Re-Registration Process in order to vote and be on the voter rolls,” the lawsuit alleged.
“No American citizen should be denied their freedom to vote, and all Americans have the same freedom to vote regardless of where they were born. Instead of protecting Americans’ freedom to vote in the November election, Alabama is shamefully intimidating naturalized citizens and illegally purging qualified Americans from voter rolls,” said an official from Campaign Legal Center, a co-plaintiff in the claim. “Our local election officials work hard to make sure only American citizens can vote. In practice, voter purges like what we are seeing in Alabama target naturalized citizens and prevent qualified Americans from exercising their right to vote. Our democracy works best when every American can participate without fear, and CLC will continue to fight for Americans’ freedom to vote.”
Under the Trump administration, though, the Department of Justice appears to have recalibrated its priorities, saying that the federal government appreciates Alabama’s effort to maintain fraud-free voter rolls.
“States are required to maintain accurate voting rolls and remove ineligible voters,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Marc Warner of the department’s Civil Rights Division. “This Administration supports the efforts of states like Alabama that engage in voting security measures that ensures only citizens are voting in our elections. We are dismissing this case from the prior Administration to permit Alabama the time and space to develop a legal, efficient, and effective process to remove noncitizens from their voting roll and secure the vote for their citizens in upcoming elections.
In a statement, the Department of Justice noted that its decision to dismiss the lawsuit would give Alabama another chance to “develop a new process to ensure that ineligible voters are removed from its voter rolls.”
Sources
DOJ, groups drop lawsuit against Alabama secretary of state over voter purge
Wes Allen’s voter purge program targeted Alabama’s naturalized citizens, lawsuit claims
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