A federal judge ordered Alabama’s Republican secretary of state on Wednesday to reverse a program that purged more than 3,000 names from the state’s voter rolls, agreeing with the Biden administration’s argument that the purge took place too close to the election.
“For decades, federal law has given states a hard deadline to complete systematic purges of ineligible persons from voter rolls: no later than ninety days before a federal election. This year, Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen blew the deadline when he announced a purge program to begin eighty-four days before the 2024 General Election,” US District Judge Anna Manasco wrote in a 5-page preliminary injunction.
Manasco, who was appointed to the bench by former President Donald Trump, added that Allen “admitted” that his purge program “included thousands of United States citizens (in addition to far fewer noncitizens, who are ineligible to vote),” and that the secretary of state referred all of the individuals to the state’s attorney general for criminal investigation…