Alabama voter groups sue officials over naturalized citizens" rights

A coalition of voting rights groups has filed a lawsuit against Alabama officials, including Secretary of State Wes Allen and Attorney General Steve Marshall, over a recent policy that allegedly targets naturalized citizens. This policy, initiated last month, aims to remove individuals from the voter rolls based on noncitizen identification numbers, which has raised concerns about its discriminatory impact on eligible voters. The lawsuit claims that the policy undermines the right to vote and relies on faulty information, potentially disenfranchising naturalized citizens who have previously held noncitizen IDs. The lawsuit highlights the case of Roald Hazelhoff, a naturalized citizen who found his voter registration inactivated due to the purge. Despite efforts to rectify his status, he remains uncertain about his ability to vote in the upcoming election. Advocacy groups argue that the policy creates an intimidating environment for naturalized citizens, suggesting that their participation in elections could lead to criminal investigations. The plaintiffs, which include organizations like the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP and the League of Women Voters of Alabama, assert that the policy is designed to unfairly burden eligible voters with the need to re-register. They emphasize that the purge disproportionately affects naturalized citizens, who have met specific requirements to gain their citizenship. Despite claims of widespread noncitizen voting, research indicates that such occurrences are extremely rare. The lawsuit contends that the purge program is part of a broader, unfounded narrative about noncitizen voting, which ultimately threatens the voting rights of eligible citizens in Alabama.