{"id":4518,"date":"2024-02-14T17:04:45","date_gmt":"2024-02-14T17:04:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/14\/al-republicans-aim-to-curb-absentee-ballot-applications-democrats-say-it-discourages-voting\/"},"modified":"2024-02-14T17:04:45","modified_gmt":"2024-02-14T17:04:45","slug":"al-republicans-aim-to-curb-absentee-ballot-applications-democrats-say-it-discourages-voting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/14\/al-republicans-aim-to-curb-absentee-ballot-applications-democrats-say-it-discourages-voting\/","title":{"rendered":"AL Republicans aim to curb absentee ballot applications, Democrats say it discourages voting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alabama lawmakers on Tuesday advanced legislation to restrict assistance with absentee ballot applications<\/a>, a measure Republicans said is needed to combat voter fraud but that opponents argued would discourage voting.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

WHAT IS RANKED CHOICE VOTING, THE CONTENTIOUS ELECTION METHOD EXPANDING ACROSS THE NATION?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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\u2019s absentee ballot application.”<\/p>\n

“This is a bill about voting rights and the integrity of our elections in the state of Alabama<\/a>,” Sen. Garlan Gudger, the bill’s sponsor, said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton said the bill invokes the state’s history of restricting voting.<\/p>\n

“People in my community died for the right to vote<\/a>. … 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.<\/p>\n

Opposed lawmakers and groups said they were concerned the stiff penalties would make people afraid to help others with ballots.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4518\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}