Alabama officials have announced that a new law broadening the range of felonies leading to loss of voting rights will not be implemented until after the November election. The state has petitioned for the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the effective date of the law, stating that under the Alabama Constitution, new election laws cannot take effect within six months of a general election.
The lawsuit, filed by the Campaign Legal Center in Montgomery Circuit Court, sought clarification that the law would not disenfranchise individuals in the upcoming November election. The lawsuit was brought on behalf of two men previously convicted of attempted murder who would lose their voting rights under the expanded list of disqualifying crimes.
The new law, termed HB100, stipulates that convictions for attempting, soliciting, or conspiring to commit any of the listed felonies that result in loss of voting rights will also be grounds for disenfranchisement. The state clarified that the two individuals mentioned in the lawsuit could vote in the imminent election but would subsequently be disqualified from voting unless their rights were reinstated.
Alabama permits individuals convicted of disenfranchising felonies to petition for the restoration of their voting rights upon completion of their sentences, parole, probation, and settlement of fines and restitution. Some convictions, such as murder, permanently bar individuals from having their voting rights reinstated.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall issued a memo to state district attorneys instructing them not to enforce the new law until after the election, after which it would be rigorously applied in all future elections.
The historical ban in Alabama on individuals with felony convictions voting traces back to the 1901 Alabama Constitution, enacted during the Jim Crow era to deter Black and underprivileged white individuals from voting. The constitution mandated that individuals convicted of crimes involving “moral turpitude” lose their voting rights. In 2017, after prolonged debates and legal battles, Alabama legislators compiled a list of over 40 offenses, including murder, robbery, assault, felony theft, and drug trafficking, resulting in disenfranchisement.
