Alabama
Coalition of rights groups sues Alabama to block enforcement of law criminalizing absentee ballot assistance
A coalition of rights groups led by the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP filed a lawsuit Friday challenging four provisions of Alabama Senate Bill 1, Act No. 2024-33 (“SB 1”), which criminalizes absentee ballot assistance. The case is in the Southern Division of the Northern District of Alabama.
Two of the challenged provisions were the Payment Provisions and the Gift Provisions. The filing says that the Payment Provision “makes it ‘unlawful for a third party to knowingly receive a payment,’ or ‘knowingly pay…a third party,’ to ‘distribute, order, request, collect, prefill, complete, obtain, or deliver a voter’s absentee ballot application.’ The Gift Provision “makes it ‘unlawful for a third party to knowingly receive…a gift,’ or ‘knowingly…provide a gift,’ to a ‘third party’ to ‘distribute, order, request, collect, prefill, complete, obtain, or deliver a voter’s absentee ballot application.” Both the Payment and Gift Provisions carry a Class B or C felony penalty.
Other challenged provisions include the Prefilling Provision and the Submission Provision. The filing says that the Prefilling Restriction “makes it ‘unlawful for any person to knowingly distribute an absentee ballot application to a voter that is prefilled with the voter’s name or any other information required on the application form.” The Submission Provision “makes it ‘unlawful for an individual to submit a completed absentee ballot application to the absentee election manager other than his or her own application,’ unless that person is seeking emergency medical treatment within five days before an election.” Both the Payment and Prefiling Provision carry a Class A misdemeanor penalty.
Ballot harvesting was the primary motive behind SB 1. Ballot harvesting is the practice and laws that allow third parties to collect and submit absentee ballots. Laws vary state by state, with some states allowing ballot harvesting by specific persons, some allowing a person chosen by the voter to return their ballot, some states unspecified on who may return ballots, and one state, Alabama, that allows only the voter to return their ballot.
According to the Legal Defense Fund, SB 1 would prohibit “non-partisan civil rights, voting rights, and disability rights organizations” from assisting voters with their absentee ballots for the November General Election. Absentee ballots are especially significant for groups such as “senior citizen voters, incarcerated voters, voters with disabilities, and low-literacy voters.”According to the Alabama Secretary of State, there were 305,663 absentee votes cast in the 2020 General Election, making up 13.1% of the total votes cast.
The lawsuit challenges SB 1 on the grounds of criminalizing constitutionally protected speech and expression, and for being too vague in its language. The current language of SB 1 would make it a crime “to provide a postage stamp to a neighbor distributing absentee ballot applications, or for a grandmother to show her appreciation for her grandchild’s assistance in completing or delivering her absentee ballot application by giving them gas money or a token gift like a pie.”
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act prohibits the enactment of new voting procedures until the procedures have been determined to have “neither discriminatory purpose or effect.”
Alabama is among the states with the most rigid absentee ballot process. State law lays out 8 situations for which a person is eligible for an absentee ballot, including if the person expects to be away from their residence on election day, if the person has a physical illness that would prevent them from voting in person, if the person is a student, if the person is a member of the military or a military dependent, if the person is an election officer or pollworker, and if the person is a family caregiver, or if the person is incarcerated but not yet convicted of a “felony involving moral turpitude.”
Once a person meets one of these criteria, they must receive an absentee ballot application, fill it out, including a copy of their photo identification, and either deliver it in person or physically place it in a mail box. Brookings has given Alabama a grading of F for their absentee ballot procedures.
After singing SB 1 into law, Governor Kay Ivey said “we are committed to ensuring our elections are free and fair…Under my watch, there will be no funny business in Alabama elections.”
Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton questioned the bill, saying “I think this is a national Republican issue. I think the state is jumping on something…Ballot harvesting is not an issue in this state.”
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The No. 13 Alabama Crimson Tide host the Texas Longhorns Saturday at 8 p.m. ET. The Crimson Tide have four losses this season, all have come against teams ranked inside the top 11.
Texas vs. Alabama will air on ESPN, and streams live on DIRECTV (free trial).
What: Men’s college basketball regular season
Who: Texas Longhorns vs. No. 13 Alabama Crimson Tide
When: Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026
Where: Coleman Coliseum, Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Time: 8 p.m. ET
TV: ESPN
Live stream: DIRECTV (free trial), fuboTV (free trial)
Texas is 3-4 in its past seven games, and doesn’t have a win over any currently ranked teams. A road win over Alabama would help its cause in the national ranking and the SEC standings. Alabama hasn’t lost to an unranked team this season, and a second straight would hurt their hopes for a top seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Here’s a recent college basketball story via the Associated Press:
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tyler Tanner scored 23 of his career-high 29 points in the second half and No. 11 Vanderbilt remained undefeated by beating 13th-ranked Alabama 96-90 on Wednesday night.
The Commodores (15-0, 2-0 Southeastern Conference) extended their best start since winning 16 straight games to open the 2007-08 season. This is only the second time in the program’s 124-year history that Vanderbilt has won its first 15.
Vanderbilt hadn’t played a ranked opponent until this game, also the first here between two top-15 teams since Jan. 5, 1974. Then-No. 10 Vanderbilt beat the 14th-ranked Crimson Tide in that game on its way to splitting the SEC championship with Alabama.
Vanderbilt also beat Alabama for the first time at Memorial Gym since 2018, ending a five-game skid against the Tide.
Duke Miles had 19 points and five steals before fouling out, and four other Commodores finished with at least four fouls. Tyler Nickel scored 12 points while Devin McGlockton and AK Okereke, who also fouled out, each had 10.
Tanner, a sophomore guard, added seven assists and four steals. He was 12 of 15 at the free-throw line — all in the second half.
Alabama (11-4, 1-1) had its four-game winning streak snapped in a game featuring 63 combined fouls, with two technicals on the Crimson Tide.
Amari Allen led Alabama with a season-high 25 points. Leading scorer Labaron Philon Jr. added 18 but checked out with 16:06 to go and never returned. Aden Holloway had 22 points and Latrell Wrightsell Jr. scored 13.
Fouls called left and right turned the first 10 minutes of the second half into ugly ball, and Alabama never led by more than four. Allen hit two free throws that pulled the Tide to 59-58 with 12:14 left.
Vanderbilt went on a 16-4 spurt that included a technical foul on Alabama coach Nate Oats with 8:39 to go. Tanner hit both free throws off the technical, then Mike James knocked down a 3-pointer for a 74-63 lead. The Tide made it interesting but got no closer than 94-90.
Up next
Alabama hosts Texas on Saturday.
Vanderbilt hosts LSU on Saturday.
Can I bet on the game?
Yes, you can bet on the game from your phone in New York State, and we’ve compiled some of the best introductory offers to help navigate your first bets from BetMGM, FanDuel, DraftKings, Bet365 and more.
The Alabama Crimson Tide are coming off a tough loss to Vanderbilt, but at 11-4 overall, they’re still in a great spot this season. On Saturday, they’ll host the Texas Longhorns, who are still seeking their first SEC win of the 2025-26 college basketball campaign.
Texas lost to Mississippi State in overtime and then lost by 14 points to Tennessee this past week. The oddsmakers now have them set as significant underdogs in this game, meaning a 0-3 start in conference play is likely. Let’s dive into it.
Odds via FanDuel Sportsbook
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Moneyline
Total
Dailyn Swain is leading Texas in points (15.6), rebounds (7.1), assists (3.5), and steals (1.8) per game. You’d be hard-pressed to find another team in college basketball where the same player leads the team in all four of those statistics. Alabama will have to shut him down to win and cover in this game.
The key factor in any Alabama game is how its opponent defends the perimeter. The Crimson Tide is primarily a three-point shooting team, which means the ability for their opponent to defend the three-ball plays a big role in how the game turns out.
Unfortunately, the Longhorns rank 223rd in the country in opponent three-point field goal percentage. They allow teams to shoot 34.4% from beyond the arc, which means Alabama, especially with the Crimson Tide being on their home court, has a chance to shoot the lights out on Saturday.
I’m going to lay the points on Alabama as a big favorite.
Pick: Alabama -13.5 (-110) via FanDuel
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Named after a famous 1940s Bullock County moonshiner who eventually served an 18-month federal prison sentence at Maxwell Air Force Base for producing illegal liquor, the Clyde May’s whiskey company was founded in Union Springs in 2001 by the bootlegger’s son, Kenny May.
Though the whiskey it produced was actually distilled in Kentucky, it was supposedly made using Conecuh Ridge spring water that was trucked there from Alabama.
In 2004, the Democrat-controlled Legislature approved a resolution naming the company’s “Conecuh Ridge Alabama Fine Whiskey” as the “Official State Spirit” of Alabama.
Gov. Bob Riley, a teetotaler who did not think the state should have an “official whiskey,” vetoed the resolution, but Democrat lawmakers quickly overrode his veto and allowed the resolution to take effect.
Shortly thereafter, in December of 2004, state liquor agents arrested Kenny May for selling liquor without a license, possessing excessive quantities of liquor in a dry county, and selling alcohol to a minor. He pled guilty to the charges.
Alabama’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board immediately moved to revoke Conecuh Ridge’s distribution license, meaning that once stores sold out of their existing stock, the state’s official spirit could no longer be sold in Alabama.
May’s stock was held in trust pending the outcome of his trial. Attorney Alva Lambert assumed interim leadership of the company.
After May entered his guilty plea, the Alabama House of Representatives moved to repeal the declaration of Conecuh Ridge as Alabama’s “Official State Spirit,” but the reversal legislation never passed the Alabama Senate. It remains the “Official State Spirit” today.
Kenny May passed away in 2016.
Owned and operated by a company based in New York today, Clyde May’s whiskey and bourbon is sold nationwide.
It’s flagship bottle is marketed as “Alabama-style” whiskey, and dried apples are added to the liquor as it ages in barrels, which imparts an apple/cinnamon flavor to the finished product.
Some like it, and some hate it, but all can agree the whiskey carries a fascinating political pedigree.
This story originally appeared in The Art of Alabama Politics, an outlet dedicated to the the wild, weird, and wonderful history of Alabama politics.
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