Our democracy works best when every voter can participate. Even though every American regardless of where they are born has the freedom to vote, recent voter purges — including in Alabama — are threatening American citizens’ freedom to vote and targeting naturalized citizens.
Just months before voters are set to head to the ballot box to cast their votes in the 2024 election, Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen directed Alabama’s Boards of Registrars to immediately inactivate and ultimately remove from the rolls any voter who has ever had a noncitizen identification number issued by the federal government.
All naturalized citizens at one point had noncitizen identification numbers prior to becoming citizens so Secretary Allen’s purge clearly included — and by design targeted — qualified U.S. citizens. In fact, Secretary Allen admitted in announcing the purge that it almost certainly swept in naturalized citizens.
Secretary Allen’s purge program has unlawfully purged both naturalized citizens who are eligible and proud Alabama voters and, because Secretary Allen’s data was faulty, U.S.-born citizens. Those Alabamians will now have to reregister to vote to exercise their freedom to vote this November.
In addition, Secretary Allen referred everyone on his purge list for criminal investigation by the Alabama attorney general, even though Secretary Allen himself admitted this group of people almost certainly included naturalized citizens.
Between the criminal referrals, the purge itself, and inflammatory rhetoric, Secretary Allen’s purge program is sure to intimidate many naturalized U.S. citizens and Alabama residents who are eligible to vote.
Alabama voters and Alabama organizations that promote voter registration, supported by Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and partners, filed a lawsuit requesting that the court block the state’s illegal voter purge program.
This lawsuit comes after CLC and state and national partners previously wrote Secretary Allen a letter demanding that he immediately stop his policy of purging naturalized citizens from the voter rolls ahead of the November 2024 election.
The predictable result of measures like Alabama’s is that eligible voters are wrongly prevented from voting, in violation of their rights.
Secretary Allen expressly admitted the virtual certainty that many if not all of the people he initially identified included naturalized citizens, but made no effort to keep qualified voters from being removed from the active voter rolls and is subjecting them to reregistration and criminal investigation.
In addition to removing eligible voters, Secretary Allen’s voter purge program has intimidated naturalized U.S. citizens in Alabama with the fear of being wrongly criminally investigated and prosecuted.
No U.S. citizen should be afraid to vote. Again, all Americans have the freedom to vote — no matter where they were born.
For these reasons, we are asking a federal court to block this unconstitutional and unlawful policy that unfairly targets naturalized U.S. citizens.
Naturalized citizens are immigrants who have worked hard to become American citizens and, like all other Americans, they deserve and have the right to vote without facing unnecessary hurdles and harassment from the government.
To ensure all voters’ voices can be heard, the court should step in to ensure that no Alabamian is deprived of the ability to exercise their freedom to vote.