Alabama says a new state law expanding the list of felonies that cause a person to lose their right to vote won’t be enforced until after the November election and asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit over the effective date.
The Alabama attorney general office wrote in a Friday court filing that the new law, which has a Oct. 1 effective date, cannot be used to block people from voting in the upcoming election, because the Alabama Constitution prohibits new election laws from taking effect within six months of the general election.
This looks like a massive own goal for the Alabama GOP. The relevant state constitution amendment was pushed through in response to covid 19 and they way many states improved voting access during the worst of the pandemic.
It was supposed to make it harder to expand voting access but now (briefly) did the opposite. Not that it matters much on a deep red state.