The government has weighed in with its position (or outright threat) in a so-called statement of interest.
President Joe Biden’s weaponized Department of Justice has entered the fray in a leftist lawfare case looking to shut down one of the nation’s most thorough election integrity laws.
Weighing in to express the government’s position (or outright threat), the DOJ has filed a so-called statement of interest in a lawsuit against Alabama’s law banning ballot harvesting.
‘No Funny Business’
The law, signed by Republican Gov. Kay Ivey in March, prohibits anyone but the voter to request his absentee ballot, with some exceptions, and makes compensating individuals for “collecting, prefilling, completing, obtaining, or delivering” ballots a Class B felony — punishable by up to 20 years in prison and $30,000 in fines. Individuals who receive payments or gifts for ballot harvesting face a Class C felony, which includes a maximum 10-year sentence and fines.
Senate Bill 1 (SB1) also requires that ballot applicants declare that they are not a felon disqualified to vote, among other key voter-integrity provisions.
“Here in Alabama, we are committed to ensuring our elections are free and fair,” Ivey said in signing SB1. “Under my watch, there will be no funny business in Alabama elections.”
Leftwing activist groups quickly sued a long list of defendants, including Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, Secretary of State Wes Allen, and district attorneys around the Yellowhammer State.
‘Will Take Action’
Filed by many of the usual lawfare suspects — including the ACLU of Alabama, Campaign Legal Center, Legal Defense Fund, and Southern Poverty Law Center — the federal complaint insists SB1 is a “vague and sweeping statute that turns civic and neighborly voter engagement into a serious crime.” The plaintiffs — the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, Greater Birmingham Ministries, League of Women Voters of Alabama, and Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program — allege that criminally penalizing compensated ballot harvesters “directly and severely burdens” their freedom of speech “by restricting core political speech and expressive activities designed to encourage absentee voting.” The law, according to the complaint, also limits their “associational rights” to engage in get-out-the-vote efforts, some of which are at the heart of the election-integrity concerns that necessitated the statute.
“They’ve used ‘widespread’ for years as a way of downplaying any concern about it,” said Hans von Spakovsky, a former member of the Federal Election Commission and Senior Legal Fellow in the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. “We don’t have ‘widespread’ bank robberies but we have enough of them that we take very detailed security precautions to prevent them. Election fraud is exactly the same.”