Bill Breakdown:
SB01 is a Form of Voter Suppression
Madeline Minkoff
The 2024 Alabama legislative session opened on February 2nd. The first bill on the docket, SB1 (read the full text here), criminalizes absentee ballot assistance. In its original form, SB01 would make it a felony for any individual or organization to assist any non-family member with requesting, filling out, and/or submitting an absentee ballot application. According to the Republican sponsors of this bill, SB01 protects the state from voter fraud and ‘ballot harvesting.’ However, critics of the bill, including many voting rights advocacy groups around the state, argue that the bill is a form of voter suppression. In Alabama, where absentee voting laws are already amongst the strictest in the country (see this study where Alabama was the only state to receive an F on its vote-by-mail preparedness), restricting access to absentee voting in yet another way could have an extreme impact on the state’s voter turnout.
A public committee meeting for SB01 was held on Wednesday, February 28th. Alabama citizens showed up in mass, filling both the room where the hearing was held and an overflow room. On the day of this public hearing, the bill was substituted, leaving no time for members of the public to review the bill before the hearing. In light of the last minute substitution, Senate Governmental Affairs Chairman Tom Butler (R – Madison County) addressed the hearing audience to assure that SB01 would not be voted on until the public had time to review the substitution. Yet, despite this promise, the substitute bill was passed in the committee by a 7-3 vote that very day. This vote fell strictly along party lines, with the 3 Democrats on the committee being the 3 nay votes for the bill.
So what changes were made in this substitute bill? The biggest change is a step in the right direction. Rather than criminalizing any and all absentee ballot assistance, the substitute bill specifically criminalizes four things:
- Submitting an absentee ballot application on the behalf of someone else (except in emergency cases).
- The prefilling of an absentee ballot application on the behalf of someone else.
- “Knowingly receive[ing] a payment or gift for distributing, ordering, requesting, collecting, completing, prefilling, obtaining, or delivering a voter’s absentee ballot application.”
- “Knowingly pay[ing] or provid[ing] a gift to a third party to distribute, order, request, collect, prefill, complete, obtain, or deliver a voter’s absentee ballot application.”
So, under this new version of SB01, if you pay your neighbor gas money to pick up an absentee ballot application for you, you could be charged with a Class B felony while your neighbor could be charged with a Class C felony. That could mean up to 10 years in prison for your neighbor and up to 20 years in prison for you. This could also mean that anybody who does voting rights work as a part of their job could be convicted of a felony for helping an Alabama citizen complete an absentee ballot application. That would include, for instance, paid employees of Greater Birmingham Ministries who have helped members of the Birmingham community register to vote and request absentee ballot applications for years! By specifically targeting people who get paid to assist others with absentee ballot applications, this bill prohibits groups around the state that seek to mobilize voters from engaging in their important work. It also targets services like TurboVote, which the University of Alabama pays for to help students register to vote and apply for absentee ballots.
Importantly, this bill also has a potentially devastating impact on voting while incarcerated. In Alabama, you can vote while in prison or jail unless you are serving a sentence for one of these specific offenses. However, incarcerated folks have to vote absentee and they need assistance from correctional institution officials and outside groups to make sure that they get a ballot. If this assistance becomes illegal, the Alabama legislature could effectively be suppressing the vote of thousands of incarcerated citizens.
Return My Vote adamantly opposes SB01, and we encourage all of our readers to reach out to their state legislators and voice their opinions and concerns about this dangerous bill. Helping a friend or a neighbor should never be illegal. Organizations that seek to strengthen our democracy by mobilizing Alabama voters and making sure their voices are heard should be allowed to keep up their work without fear of imprisonment. Let your voice be heard!
