UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA SOUTHERN DIVISION PEOPLE FIRST OF ALABAMA, et al., Plaintiffs, v. JOHN MERRILL, et al.,

 

Defendants. ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) )

)

Civil Action Number 2:20-cv-00619-AKK FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

Voting is an inviolable right, occupying a sacred place in the lives of those who fought to secure the right and in our democracy, because it is “preservative of all rights.”

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 The parties do not dispute those fundamental truths. The parties’ dispute centers instead on whether three provisions of Alabama’s election laws—the requirement that a notary or two witnesses sign absentee ballot affidavits, the requirement that absentee voters submit a copy of their photo ID with an absentee  ballot application, and the de facto ban on curbside voting

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 —violate the right to vote in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The plaintiffs assert that the defendants’ enforcement of the Challenged Provisions during the pandemic compels voters to risk exposure to COVID-19 in

1

 

Yick Wo v. Hopkins

, 118 U.S. 356, 370 (1886).

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 The court refers to these three provisions as the “Challenged Provisions.”

FILED

 2020 Sep-30 PM 12:09U.S. DISTRICT COURTN.D. OF ALABAMA

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2 order to exercise their right to vote, leading to potentially deadly consequences for vulnerable voters whose age, race, disabilities, or health conditions place them at heightened risk from the virus. The plaintiffs contend that forcing voters to bear that risk runs afoul of their fundamental right to vote and violates federal law, and they seek an order barring the defendants from enforcing the Challenged Provisions for the general election in November. Without this relief, the plaintiffs believe voters will face an impossible choice between jeopardizing their health by engaging in  person-to-person contact they would not otherwise have or sacrificing their right to vote during the COVID-19 pandemic. These issues are important to all people, but the plaintiffs find them  particularly significant. Their testimony speaks for itself. Plaintiff Eric Peebles, an Alabama voter who uses a wheelchair and suffers from spastic cerebral palsy, described what voting means for people with disabilities: “Voting is important to me because as a person with a disability and for people with disabilities, voting is the one way that we can participate . . . . Voting is blind. Everybody’s ballot looks the same when you’re counting them.”

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 Susan Ellis, the executive director of  plaintiff People First, echoed that sentiment: “[Voting is] a way to have a visible  participation in policy making, and decision making, and law making. . . . [O]ur

3

 9/8/20 at 132. This citation reflects the date of the testimony and the page of that day’s transcript. Due to the time-sensitive nature of this case, the court cites to the Court Reporter’s uncertified rough transcript of the trial.

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3 members are proud to . . . be examples to our community that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are valued citizens and want to express and be seen expressing the right to vote.”

4

 Many Black Alabamians, another group with a historically fraught relationship with the franchise, feel the same. As plaintiff Howard Porter, Jr., a Black man in his seventies, earnestly expressed: “[S]o many of my [ancestors] even died to vote. And while I don’t mind dying to vote, I think we’re past that – we’re past that time.”

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 Mr. Porter believes that voting should be as easy and secure as possible because Election Day “is the only day that rich, the poor, sick, the healthy, all should be counted as one and just as easy.”

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 Similarly, plaintiff Annie Carolyn Thompson, a sixty-eight-year-old Black woman, explained that the importance of voting “has been instilled in [her] from a young person because of . . . how hard it was for us to get the right to vote, the things that some of my ancestors had to go through in order to get the right to vote . . . .”

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 Thus, she concluded, “[T]he right to vote is very important to me, and I do not take it lightly.”

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  Neither do the defendants. Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, for example, testified that he wants every eligible voter who wishes to vote in November

4

 9/11/20 at 115-16.

5

 9/14/20 at 80.

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 Id.

 

7

 9/8/20 at 180.

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 Id.

 

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