Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall is continuing to back the effort to remove non-citizens from the voter rolls in the Yellowhammer State.
In August, Alabama Sec. of State Wes Allen announced that he had identified 3,251 individuals registered to vote in Alabama who have been issued noncitizen identification numbers by the Department of Homeland Security.
A federal judge temporarily blocked Alabama’s non-citizen voter removal effort Wednesday in response to the lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) last month. The judge agrees with the DOJ that the voter roll purge violated the National Voter Registration Act because it was done too close to election day.
Marshall blasted the DOJ lawsuit Friday on WVNN’s “The Yaffee Program.”
“The irony here is that while we’re being sued by the federal government, and they’ve come in and obtained this injunction, the Secretary of State’s office tried to work with the federal government to come up with an appropriate list to identify those who can’t vote lawfully in Alabama, and yet they refused,” Marshall said. “And now they’re while not cooperating on the front end, wanting to come in on the backside for a good faith effort by the state to make sure that our voter rolls are accurate.”
Marshall said this is why Congress needs to pass legislation to help the states protect the integrity of their elections.
“The SAVE Act is an important piece of legislation, because not only does it state that fundamental principle that you just described, that if you hear unlawfully, you shouldn’t be able to vote, but also mandates cooperation of the federal government with state authorities who are responsible for elections to ensure that those individuals don’t make it to the voter rolls to begin with,” he said. “And so the Senate has the opportunity to be able to vote on that they should. You’ve heard requests from me and other elected officials for them to act on that promptly. And it shouldn’t be something that should be subject to partisan debate. It ought to be a fundamental proposition about a fair and safe election.”
Marshall admitted that the injunction is a setback, but also said they will continue to try and protect Alabama’s elections.
“Well, the litigation is still out there that the federal judge did not extend her injunction past this election date, but as a result of the proactive efforts of our Secretary of State, we have had individuals that have removed themselves from the road roll to acknowledge that they shouldn’t have been on it to begin with,” he explained. “And so we’ve seen progress, regardless of whether or not the injunction is in place.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on X @Yaffee
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