The lawsuit alleges the policy threatens the voting rights of naturalized citizens who were once issued noncitizen identification numbers by DHS.
A number of advocacy groups filed a lawsuit on Friday against the Alabama secretary of state and attorney general over a recent decision that removed some naturalized citizens who were previously noncitizens from voter rolls. The groups argued that this meant these individuals would need to re-register to vote and “undermined the fundamental right to vote.”
On Aug. 13, Secretary of State of Alabama Wes Allen announced that his office had identified 3,251 people on the state’s voter rolls who had been issued with a noncitizen identification number by the Department of Homeland Security.
Allen instructed the state’s 67 county Boards of Registrars to immediately inactivate and begin removing all individuals who are not U.S. citizens from the rolls. He characterized the move as a strategic effort “to ensure that Alabama has the cleanest and most accurate voter file in the country.”
In their lawsuit, the groups allege that the move was designed to target and threaten the voting rights of naturalized citizens who were once noncitizen legal permanent residents and had been issued noncitizen identification numbers by the Department of