On Monday, Secretary of State Wes Allen voiced his disappointment with the three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for recently denying a request to stay a partial preliminary injunction on Alabama's ballot harvesting law, which the legislature passed in March.
Allen said on "Alabama's Morning News with JT" that he disagreed with the ruling on the new law, which he explained was meant to protect the disabled's votes.
“[W]e don't agree with it," Allen said of the ruling. "The intent of [Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act], if you were to read it in its totality in the federal law, the intent was meant to protect those that are disabled and for them to be able to choose who they want, not these individuals who are getting paid to go door to door and canvas and put the undue influence on these guys.”
According to Allen, Attorney General Steve Marshall will continue fighting the law "up the chain" to properly set parameters for absentee voting.
“The Attorney General, Steve Marshall, and his team are going to continue to fight this thing up the chain," he outlined. "And really, this is kind of plowing some new ground here in federal law. You know, we took a different approach. The way we approached protecting the absentee ballot and the absentee ballot applications that had kind of never been looked at before and done this way throughout the country. So we got a lot of eyeballs, a lot of states watching what we're doing."
Allen continued, "As a matter of fact, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Florida, there were some other states that joined in an amicus brief, a friend of the court brief, to support our efforts in this federal lawsuit to defend ourselves and to say that we can set the parameters for absentee voting. We really want the court to take a look and look at the intent of 208 that protects the disabled while they can choose. It does not allow for all this money to come flowing in to these paid political activists to go door to door and put this undue influence on these voters.”
To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email trent.baker@1819news.com.
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