Alabama

Alabama Republicans support the voter eligibility bill on conspiratorial grounds

Published

1 year ago

July 11, 2024

Alabama Republicans support the voter eligibility bill on conspiratorial grounds

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed the SAVE Act in a 221-198 vote. Short for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, the SAVE Act would require states to verify proof of citizenship when people register to vote.

The bill is the latest legislative effort inspired by conservative conspiracy theories about Democrats stealing elections by letting illegal immigrants vote. When asked for examples in May, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson just said that Americans “know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections” and that it was not “something that is easily provable.”

The dearth of hard evidence has not prevented many Alabama politicians from arguing that more restrictions on noncitizens voting are needed to stop Democrats from stealing elections. Alabama Rep. Barry Moore claimed in one statement that “Democrats want non-citizens to vote because they know most Americans don’t support their radical agenda.”

The Congressman from Alabama’s 5th District, Dale Strong, said “Democrats have made clear that they support foreign nationals interfering in U.S. elections” by opposing the SAVE Act.

And Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville tweeted that “Corrupt Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have let MILLIONS of illegals into this country, and now they want them to vote in our elections.”

However, as Democrats in Congress, President Biden, and voting rights organizations have all publicized, voting in federal elections as a noncitizen is already explicitly illegal. While some municipalities have passed laws to let Green Card holders vote in local elections, no prominent Democratic politicians have pushed to let noncitizens vote in federal elections.

Plus, the League of Women Voters points out that “voters in every state are already required to affirm or verify their citizenship status when registering to vote.” Democrats have not pushed to remove this requirement either.

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Noncitizens attempting to register to vote is also incredibly rare, and noncitizens actually voting even rarer. A 2017 report from the Brennan Center for Justice found “only an estimated 30 incidents of suspected noncitizen voting” [emphasis added] out of over 20 million votes cast in the jurisdictions they researched. A 2022 audit in Georgia found that just 1,634 noncitizens attempted to register in 25 years: Not one even successfully registered.

Rather than preventing noncitizens from voting, the primary effect of the SAVE Act, if passed by the Senate and signed into law, would be requiring citizens to actively prove that they are a U.S. citizen in addition to affirming it.

Specifically, prospective voters would need to provide:

REAL ID compliant identification that “indicates the applicant is a citizen”
A US passport
A military ID with a “record of service showing that the applicant’s place of birth was in the United States”
Or another photo ID which either shows a place of birth in the United States or is presented along with a birth certificate, adoption records, or other proof of citizenship

As driver licenses (by far the most common form of REAL ID compliant identification) don’t show citizenship status in most states, effectively the bill would require either a passport or both an ID and other proof of citizenship. According to the U.S. State Department, less than half of all Americans have a valid passport.

Alabama’s only Democratic member of Congress, Terri Sewell, called the SAVE ACT “a dangerous, anti-democratic bill that would do nothing to protect our elections” on the House floor.

She pointed to the requirements to regularly remove noncitizens from voting rolls and said they would also “purge thousands of eligible voters from the rolls including Americans who recently got married and changed their last names and those with military and tribal IDs.”

“With state lawmakers working overtime to erect barriers to the ballot box, the need for federal voting rights protections is just as urgent today as it was 60 years ago,” Sewell said. “After all, it is up to the voters to choose our elected leaders, not the other way around.”

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Sewell again called for Congress to consider and pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Named after the now deceased civil rights hero and Congressman, the bill would make it harder to change election law in potentially discriminatory ways.

The campaign against supposed noncitizen voting in recent months is reminiscent of Trump’s attacks on voting-by-mail in the lead-up to the 2020 election. In both cases, Republicans called the integrity of American elections into doubt based on minimal hard evidence and simultaneously complained that Americans had “lost trust in our election process,” as Alabama Rep. Gary Palmer has said.

It seems possible that, like absentee voting in 2020, noncitizen voting could provide the justification for Trump to challenge the results of the presidential election if he loses this November.

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Alabama

Alabama Shakes Set Spring 2026 Tour Dates

Published

3 hours ago

December 12, 2025

Press Room

Alabama Shakes Set Spring 2026 Tour Dates

Alabama Shakes have lined up a string of North American tour dates for 2026. Brittany Howard and the band’s spring run includes multiple stops in Florida and a concluding two-night stint at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Denver, Colorado. Check out the new dates, plus their previously announced festival shows, European itinerary, and Zach Bryan support dates, below.

Support for the headline shows comes from Joy Oladokun, Mon Rovîa, Lamont Landers, and JJ Grey & Mofro. For every ticket sold, $1 will go towards nonprofits around the United States via the Alabama Shakes Fund, a press release notes. There is, as yet, no word on a follow-up to the band’s 2015 album, Sound & Color, but they did sign to Island this year and release their first single since that record.

Alabama Shakes:

04-16 Richmond, VA – Allianz Amphitheater at Riverfront ~
04-17 Asheville, NC – ExploreAsheville.com Arena ~
04-18 Charleston, SC – High Water Fest
04-22 Memphis, TN – Grind City Amphitheater +
04-24 Atlanta, GA – Synovus Bank Amphitheater at Chastain Park +
04-25 Raleigh, NC – Red Hat Amphitheater +
04-26 St. Augustine, FL – St. Augustine Amphitheatre %
04-28 Tallahassee, FL – Adderley Amphitheater %
04-29 Boca Raton, FL – Sunset Cove Amphitheater %
04-30 Clearwater, FL – The BayCare Sound %
05-02 New Orleans, LA – New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
05-24 Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre #
05-25 Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre #
06-13 Manchester, Tennessee – Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival
07-01 Leeds, England – Millennium Square
07-02 Wasing, England – On the Mount at Wasing
07-03 London, England – Alexandra Palace *
07-05 Ghent, Belgium – Gent Jazz Festival
07-07 Lucca, Italy – Summer Festival
07-09 Lisbon, Portugal – NOS Alive Festival
07-10 Bilbao, Spain – BBK Live
07-11 Madrid, Spain – Noches del Botanico
07-25 Eugene, OR – Autzen Stadium ^
09-19 Dover, DE – The Woodlands ^

~ with Joy Oladokun
+ with Mon Rovîa
% with Lamont Landers
# with JJ Grey & Mofro
* with Tyler Ballgame
^ supporting Zach Bryan

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Alabama

Jacob Crews scores 20 for Missouri in 85-77 win over Alabama State

Published

15 hours ago

December 12, 2025

Press Room

Jacob Crews scores 20 for Missouri in 85-77 win over Alabama State

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Jacob Crews scored 20, and Anthony Robinson II added 19 in Missouri’s 85-77 win over Alabama State on Thursday night.

Crews shot 7 of 9 from the field, including 6 of 8 from the 3-point arc. Mark Mitchell added 15 points for Missouri (9-2), and Sebastian Mack added 10.

The Tigers had a 15-0 run in the first half, heading into the locker room up 52-39. Alabama State was held scoreless over a 4:19 drought in the middle of the second half to open a 9-0 run for the Tigers. The Hornets (3-8) responded with their own 10-0 run to bring the game within eight, 74-62. The Tigers regained control, though, to keep their eight-point lead the rest of the game, handing Alabama State their fourth loss in a row.

The Tigers shot 65% (33 of 51). Both teams shot 50% from the free-throw line.

Alabama State outscored Missouri in the final period, 38-33. Asjon Anderscon scored 23 for the Hornets, leading all players in scoring.

Up next

Missouri hosts Bethune-Cookman on Dec. 14.

Alabama State travels to Cincinnati to face the Bearcats on Dec. 17.

___ Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here and here (AP News mobile app). AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball

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Alabama

Katie Windham Highlights Alabama Areas of Improvement on The Joe Gaither Show

Published

1 day ago

December 11, 2025

Press Room

Katie Windham Highlights Alabama Areas of Improvement on The Joe Gaither Show

Let’s crank up a Thursday edition of “The Joe Gaither Show on BamaCentral” with Mason Woods and Katie Windham as we start getting ready for next week’s College Football Playoff game between Alabama and Oklahoma. Windham detailed how the Crimson Tide can improve over the next few weeks, we discuss the team’s health and look back at our last road trip to Norman. The show then discusses the Heisman Trophy finalists before addressing a Kalen DeBoer coaching rumor.

The program opens by power ranking the holidays before discussing Windham’s three areas the Crimson Tide can improve over the next week. Our trio picks the easiest area the team can improve and how Alabama must perform in Norman. Windham details our last trip to Oklahoma as we go down memory lane to the Sooners’ 24-3 victory last season.

The show continues on by getting Windham’s thoughts on Alabama’a College Football Playoff selection and if the Crimson Tide actually deserved its place in the field. She brings up a unique aspect of Alabama’s blowout loss in the SEC Championship and how it played into the program’s inclusion in the College Football Playoffs.

We move from next week’s game into a small discussion on Notre Dame’s reaction of being left out of the field and how it relates to Alabama’s future home-and-home dates with the Fighting Irish. Will the two esteemed programs still face off in a few years?

The show heads into the only college football action of the weekend by highlighting the strong Heisman Trophy finalist field. Who brings home the bronze statue?

Lastly, we spend the final bit of the show talking about Michigan firing Sherrone Moore and the reports of the Wolverines considering persuing Kalen DeBeor for their next head coach. Will DeBoer leave Tuscaloosa for Ann Arbor?

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