DOJ Lawsuit Against Alabama Shows How “Noncitizen” Voter Purges Actually Sweep Up U.S. Citizens

Federal law requires a 90-day blackout period ahead of an election, during which states are prohibited from removing voter registrations. Situations like this are why.

The Department of Justice sued Alabama on Sept. 27 for improperly removing from the voter rolls more than 3,200 people the state claims are noncitizens, an expulsion that falls within the 90-day preelection “Quiet Period’ where states are forbidden from purging voter rolls.

Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen announced a purge of 3,251 alleged “noncitizens” from the state’s voter rolls on Aug. 13. The National Voter Registration Act makes it illegal for states to purge voter rolls within 90 days of an election, a period which began on Aug. 7. Allen’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The Quiet Period Provision of federal law exists to prevent eligible voters from being removed from the rolls as a result of last-minute, error-prone efforts,” Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney for the Civil Rights Division, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “The Justice Department will continue to use all the tools it has available to ensure that the voting rights of every eligible voter are protected.”

Allen’s voter purge came as part of a concerted effort by the Republican Party to falsely claim that noncitizens are illegally voting en masse in federal elections. Former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump, along with Speaker Mike Johnson and numerous state officials, have stated falsely that noncitizen voting is widespread, apparently in a preemptive move to excuse a potential Trump election loss.

Noncitizen voting, however, is already both illegal and exceedingly rare. A study by the progressive Brennan Center for Justice found just 30 cases of suspected noncitizen voting were referred for investigation across 12 states in the 2016 election. Those cases did not necessarily even involve a noncitizen. Trump’s own election fraud task force was disbanded after it failed to find any evidence of widespread election fraud.