Lawsuit over voting dismissed after Alabama AG offers new guidance on statute

Signage at an early voting center on Sept. 23, 2016 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

A Montgomery County Circuit Judge Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit against a new law plaintiffs said could prevent them from voting.

The dismissal came after Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall issued guidance that the law – which expands the number of crimes that can cost a person their right to vote – would not go into effect until after the November election.

Ellen Boettcher, legal counsel for Campaign Legal Center, which represented plaintiffs Jai Gregory Clarke and Robert Crowley in their lawsuit, said in an interview Wednesday that the new guidance would provide some guidance ahead of the November elections.

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Boettcher added that Alabama voters have additional clarity on the voting laws for the coming election.

“Because we are so close to the election, we really needed clarity on who is eligible to vote and who is not eligible to vote in this November’s election, and the Secretary of State and the Attorney General were willing to provide that clarity,” she said in an interview Wednesday.

A message was sent to the Alabama Attorney General’s Office seeking comment.

Montgomery Circuit Court Judge James Anderson granted the attorney general’s motion to have the lawsuit dismissed since it would not affect voters in the coming election.

In July, Clarke and Crowley, who live in Jefferson and Blount counties, respectively, filed a suit challenging HB 100 , sponsored by Rep. Adline Clarke, D-Mobile and signed by Gov. Kay Ivey on May 15. The bill enhanced penalties for misdemeanor and felony offenses committed against election officials for performing their duties, and prohibited people who committed those crimes from voting.

The bill garnered support from members from both parties. But as the bill was making its way through the legislative process, legislators added scores of other offenses to a category designated as crimes of moral turpitude. A person convicted of a crime of moral turpitude in Alabama loses their right to vote.

According to the Campaign Legal Center’s estimates, the bill expanded the list from 40 offenses to 120. Clarke and Crowley said they had been convicted of crimes that, under the new law, would disqualify them from voting. The lawsuit alleged that HB 100 violated the state constitution because its provisions were implemented less than six months prior to an election.

Jai Gregory Clarke, who is also a Birmingham hub organizer and voting rights restoration state lead at Faith in Action Alabama, wrote in an email that he was “grateful that an Alabama judge affirmed the right to vote in the upcoming election for people like me, who have labored long to regain our place in society, and exercise the most basic right of citizenship.”

“It is curious that by contrast, Alabama legislators have labored at least as long to suppress the voices of so many Alabamians,” he wrote.

The state is allowed to enforce the provisions in HB 100 in the future.

“Going forward, voters (affected by HB 100) should not register or vote after the November election unless they receive a certificate of eligibility to register to vote,” Boettcher said. “That is just to protect voters.”

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Updated at 11:53 a.m. Aug. 23 to correct a quote that Boettcher said state officials were willing to offer guidance. An earlier version of the story mistakenly rendered it as unwilling.