Campaign Legal Center (CLC) is representing two Alabama voters with past felony convictions in a lawsuit challenging a new law that could deprive many Alabamians of their freedom to vote in the 2024 election.
Back to topCampaign Legal Center (CLC) is representing two Alabama voters with past felony convictions in a lawsuit challenging a new law that could deprive many Alabamians of their freedom to vote in the 2024 election.
The bill, H.B. 100, states that it will go into effect on October 1, 2024, just over a month before the election. The law effectively adds...
A new law, HB 100, is set to go into effect on October 1, 2024 and effectively adds over 120 felonies to Alabama’s so-called list of “crimes of moral turpitude,” which take away a person’s right to vote.
Implementing this bill just one month before the November election will create substantial confusion for voters and election officials alike, as it changes the rules of voter eligibility immediately prior to a general election.
Worse still, absentee voting begins in Alabama on September 11, 2024 — before HB 100’s October 1 effective date. This means that some Alabama voters will cast their ballots as eligible voters but become ineligible by the time their ballot is set to be counted.
The new law also overrules the will of Alabama voters, who in 2022 overwhelmingly voted to amend the Alabama Constitution to ban changes to election laws within six months of a general election.
CLC filed the lawsuit in state court in partnership with Alabama attorney J. Mitch McGuire.
Alabama’s Constitution does not disenfranchise all individuals with felony convictions, but it prevents those convicted of “felonies involving moral turpitude” from voting until their rights are restored.
This vague language, originally adopted in the 1901 Alabama Constitution to “establish white supremacy in this State,” was a method of keeping Black people from voting without overtly breaking federal law.
Until 2017, Alabama law disenfranchised more than 130,000 Black citizens — roughly 15% of Black adults in the state — and never explained which felonies were disqualifying until 2017, allowing the state to arbitrarily and unequally enforce this law.
Alabamians had long been pushing the state to clarify which felony convictions take away the right to vote. In 2017, the Legislature finally passed a law defining what convictions take away the right to vote.
The 2017 law enshrined the freedom to vote to all Alabamians with felony convictions that were not on the list.
Now, Alabama is backsliding and seeks to disenfranchise many more of its citizens just over a month before the 2024 general election and while early voting is already underway.
