MONTGOMERY, Alabama — Voting rights groups have filed a lawsuit against the Alabama Secretary of State over a policy they say illegally targets naturalized citizens so they can be removed from the voter rolls ahead of the November election.
Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen announced last month that 3,251 people Individuals who have previously been assigned a non-citizen identification number will have their voter registration status made inactive and will be marked for possible removal from the voter rolls.
The lawsuit, filed Friday by the Campaign Legal Center, Fair Elections Center and Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of naturalized citizens and advocacy groups, alleges that the method unfairly targets naturalized citizens who previously had a noncitizen identification number before being granted citizenship.
“Alabama is targeting its growing immigrant population through a voter purge designed to intimidate and disenfranchise naturalized citizens,” the lawsuit says.
Allen’s office was unaware of the charges and does not typically comment on legal cases, Allen spokeswoman Laney Rawls said Monday.
In announcing the voter purge, Allen acknowledged the possibility that some of the individuals identified had become naturalized citizens since receiving their noncitizen numbers. He said they would need to update their information on a state voter registration form and could vote once it was verified.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit include two U.S. citizens who received letters saying they were being moved to inactive voter registration status because of the purge. One is a Dutch-born man who became a U.S. citizen in 2022. The other is a U.S.-born citizen.
“No American citizen should be denied the right to vote, and all Americans have the same right to vote, regardless of where they were born. Instead of protecting Americans’ freedom to vote in the November election, Alabama is shamefully intimidating naturalized citizens and illegally purging qualified Americans from the voter rolls,” Paul Smith, senior vice president of the Campaign Legal Center, said in a statement about the lawsuit.
As the presidential election approaches, Republicans across the country are concerned about the possibility of non-U.S. citizens voting. States have also begun reviewing voter rolls and other initiatives.
“I have made it clear that I will not tolerate the participation of non-citizens in our elections,” Allen said in a statement announcing the voter roll purge.
Voting by non-citizens is rare, according to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice. In a review of 2016 election data from 42 jurisdictions, election officials found 30 incidents of suspected noncitizen voting out of 23.5 million votes.
Federal prosecutors in Alabama last week announced a plea agreement with a Guatemalan woman who used a false identity to obtain a U.S. passport. Prosecutors said she used the same false identity to vote in 2016 and 2020.