Alabama lawmakers on Tuesday advanced legislation to restrict assistance with absentee ballot applications, a measure Republicans said is needed to combat voter fraud but that opponents argued would discourage voting.
The Alabama Senate approved the bill on a 27-8 vote that broke down along party lines. The bill now moves to the Alabama House of Representatives.
Senate Republicans, who called the bill a priority for the session, said it is aimed at stopping "ballot harvesting," a pejorative term for dropping off completed ballots for other people. Republicans said they want to get the legislation in place before the November election.
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The legislation would make it a misdemeanor to return someone else's absentee ballot application or distribute applications prefilled with a voter's name or other information. It would become a felony to pay a person or receive payment to "distribute, order, request, collect, prefill, complete, obtain, or deliver a voter’s absentee ballot application."
"This is a bill about voting rights and the integrity of our elections in the state of Alabama," Sen. Garlan Gudger, the bill's sponsor, said.
The bill is before lawmakers after a 2023 proposal that would have largely banned any type of assistance in voting by absentee ballot failed to win approval.
Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton said the bill invokes the state's history of restricting voting.
"People in my community died for the right to vote. ... My great-grandmother used to have to tell how many jellybeans were in the jar just to be able to register to vote," Singleton said.
Opposed lawmakers and groups said they were concerned the stiff penalties would make people afraid to help others with ballots.
Several Republican-led states have looked to restrict absentee ballot assistance. A federal judge last year blocked a Mississippi law that would have restricted who could help a person with an absentee ballot.
