Biden's DOJ interference targets Alabama ballot-trafficking ban

The Justice Department, armed with President Joe Biden, has entered the fray in a left-wing case seeking to repeal one of the nation's most far-reaching election integrity laws.

Weighing in to express the government's position (or outright threat), the DOJ filed a so-called statement of interest in a lawsuit challenging Alabama's law banning ballot harvesting.

“No funny business”

The law, signed by Republican Gov. Kay Ivey in March, prohibits anyone other than the voter from requesting their absentee ballot, with some exceptions, and compensates individuals for “collecting, processing, “prefilling, completing, obtaining or delivering” ballots a class B felony. – punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a $30,000 fine. People who receive payments or gifts for ballot harvesting face a Class C felony, which includes a maximum sentence of 10 years and fines.

Senate Bill 1 (SB1) also requires candidates for office to declare that they are not felons disqualified from voting, 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 leadership, there will be no funny business in Alabama elections.”

Left-wing activist groups quickly pursued a long list of defendants, including Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, Secretary of State Wes Allen and Yellowhammer State district attorneys.

“I will take action”

Filed by many of the usual legal suspects – including the ACLU of Alabama, the Campaign Legal Center, the Legal Defense Fund and the Southern Poverty Law Center – the federal complaint insists that SB1 is a “vague and radical that turns voter civic and neighborhood engagement into a serious crime.” Plaintiffs – the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, Greater Birmingham Ministries, the League of Women Voters of Alabama and the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program – allege that the criminal penalization of compensated ballot harvesters “directly and seriously burdens” their freedom of expression “by restricting key political speech and expressive activities designed to encourage vote by vote.” correspondence 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 passage. status.

But it is the claim that the law “disenfranchises voters with disabilities, elderly voters, voters of color, eligible incarcerated voters, and many other Alabamians who rely on assistance to vote” that angered the Biden Justice Department.

In its statement of interest, the DOJ claims to “promote the correct and uniform interpretation of election laws protecting the rights of voters with disabilities.” The agency also intervened in a lawsuit seeking to restrict an Ohio law that only allows a postal employee or next of kin to handle a person's absentee ballot on their behalf. In both cases, federal officials say the voter integrity laws run afoul of Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, which the DOJ says allows voters with disabilities to receive assistance “from any person of their choice, as long as that person is not an agent of the voter’s employer or union.”

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke suggests laws deny voters with disabilities access to ballots.

“The right to vote is fundamental to our democracy, and the Department of Justice will take steps to protect this right for all eligible voters, including those with disabilities who need assistance voting by mail,” Clarke, a former lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund who now serves in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, threatened in the press release. This is the same assistant general who recently admitted to falsely telling the Senate that she had not been arrested for violence. As the New York Post reported, during her 2021 confirmation hearing, Clarke answered “no” when Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., asked if she had “ever been arrested or charged with having committed a violent crime against any person.” .”

“Several convictions”

The DOJ’s bluster seems misdirected. Alabama's law prohibiting ballot harvesting makes clear that disabled, blind or illiterate residents eligible to vote “may receive assistance from a person of the voter's choice.” The exception, of course, is an agent of the voter's employer or a representative of the voter's union, as provided in the Voting Rights Act.

“Ballot harvesting should not be a job description,” Secretary of State Wes Allen said in an op-ed written before SB1 finally became law.

“Over the past decade, there have been numerous convictions for absentee ballot fraud across the state of Alabama,” he said.

Liberal activists insist such fraud is not a problem and certainly not worth passing a law to end ballot harvesting. But the Heritage Foundation's voter fraud database records more than a dozen cases of fraudulent use of mail-in ballots in Alabama, including a case in which a judge overturned the preliminary results of the ballots. elections in a race for Wetumpka City Council.

“On election night, it appeared that Washington's opponent, Percy Gill, who was the incumbent president, had won by three votes,” Heritage notes. “Washington contested the result, and following a trial in which witnesses and forensic experts testified, the judge threw out eight absentee ballots that had been cast in Gill's favor either because the signatures had been forged, either because they had not been notarized or signed in front of the required number of witnesses and declared Washington the winner.

Democrats like to say that voter fraud is not widespread, but as the Alabama case illustrates, a few fraudulent votes can upend an election. And every fraudulent vote is an attack on free and fair elections.

“They've been using the term 'extensively' for years to minimize any concern about it,” said Hans von Spakovsky, a former member of the Federal Election Commission and senior law fellow at the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Issues. the Heritage Foundation. Studies. “We don't have 'widespread' bank robberies, but we have enough that we take very detailed security measures to prevent them. Voter fraud is exactly the same thing.

“Alabama votes are not for sale”

Earlier this year, Allen told the Alabama Political Reporter that the previous mail-in voting law did not contain comprehensive provisions to penalize accused ballot tamperers.

“[T]here, no one was prosecuted[d] because the law that we changed, the sanctions were very vague, “said the Secretary of State for the publication.

Alabama is the only state that “specifies that only the voter can return their absentee ballot,” according to Ballotpedia. Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia allow “a person of the voter's choosing to return absentee ballots on the voter's behalf in most cases,” while 13 states specify who is allowed to do so. A dozen other states don't have laws for returning ballots on behalf of voters, Ballotpedia reports.

Allen's office said it could not comment on the merits of the lawsuit and directed questions to the attorney general's office. But the secretary of state “stands by his previous statements” in favor of banning ballot harvesting in Alabama.

“SB1 provides Alabama voters with strong protection against activists who take advantage of the mail-in election process. I remain steadfast in my support of SB1 because now, under Alabama law, Alabama votes are not for sale,” Allen said.

Matt Kittle is senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative journalist and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast and online journalism, Kittle previously served as executive director of Empower Wisconsin.