Robert Crowley is a U.S. Army veteran, and volunteer with the Paralyzed Veterans of America and Mid-South chapter representative.

He’s described in a lawsuit as a devoted father, grandfather and great-grandfather. But 27 years ago in 1997, he was convicted of attempted murder. Though he’s a registered voter in Alabama, his ability to vote on Nov. 5 is in doubt because of a new Alabama law that could disqualify him and many others from voting.

It’s also a new law that is confusing and unconstitutional, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Montgomery County Circuit Court that challenges the law – which was HB100 in the Alabama Legislature this spring – before absentee voting begins in September.

“Every American should be able to exercise their freedom to vote, regardless of whether they have a past felony conviction,” said Blair Bowie, director of the Campaign Legal Center’s Restore Your Vote program.

CLC, along with Montgomery attorney J. Mitch McGuire, filed the lawsuit that seeks to block HB100 from being implemented.

“HB100 makes an already confusing voting rights restoration process in Alabama even harder to navigate,” Bowie said.

Expanding Moral turpitude

The intent of HB100, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Adline Clark of Mobile, was to protect election workers by adding crimes against election workers and other election officials to a list of disqualifying felonies that can strip someone’s ability to vote.

But before the bill’s passage, lawmakers amended it to add six more felonies as crimes of moral turpitude – a designation that means those convicted are disqualified from voting.

Four additional categories of felonies for “inchoate” crimes, such as attempted crimes and conspiracies, were also added to the list.

According to the lawsuit, HB100 “effectively adds over 120 new disenfranchising state convictions to the list of felonies involving moral turpitude. Before HB100, that list included only approximately 40 disenfranchising state felonies.”

“More Alabamians with prior felony convictions have been able to vote since 2017,” Bowie said, referring to the year that state lawmakers adopted the Felony Voter Disqualification Act that defined the more than 40 crimes – including murder, rape, assault, sexual abuse – as crimes of moral turpitude.

The lawsuit’s two plaintiffs – Crowley and JaiGregory Clarke, a community organizer in Jefferson County – have attempted murder convictions and would be disqualified from voting under the new law.

Questionable timing

The biggest question raised in the lawsuit is whether HB100, signed by Gov. Kay Ivey on May 16, violates the Alabama Constitution because of its timing.

Voters in 2022 overwhelmingly adopted a constitutional amendment that says laws affecting elections cannot change within six months of an election. But HB100 includes an implementation date of Oct. 1, which is less than 35 days before the Nov. 5 election.

The lawsuit argues there is confusion and no direction from state officials about the law’s enforcement. Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen hasn’t provided direction on the new law, the lawsuit argues, other than providing a statement to AL.com’s Mike Cason in late May, that says the new law doesn’t take effect until Nov. 6.

“Preventing confusion around such crucial, unanswered questions in the months preceding a general election is precisely why approximately 80 percent of Alabama voters passed Amendment 4, enshrining in the Alabama Constitution a prohibition on election bills taking effect within six months of a general election,” the lawsuit states.

Allen’s office declined comment, referring statements to the Alabama Attorney General’s Office. The Attorney General’s Office did not respond to a request to comment.

Othni Lathram, director of the Legislative Services Agency, said while he cannot comment on how the Secretary of State’s Office is implementing the new law, his agency’s analysis while lawmakers were considering the bill earlier this year included an acknowledgement of the new constitutional amendment. The analysis simply says the legislation, while effective Oct. 1, would not impact who votes in November because of the 2022 constitutional amendment.

The timing of the new law – if it takes effect on Oct. 1 — would also prevent Alabamians like Clarke and Crowley from getting their voting rights restored through the Certificate of Eligibility to Vote – or CERV – process through the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Parole (ABPP), the lawsuit states.

The CERV process allows felons who lose their voting rights and who have completed their sentence, paid all fines, court costs and restitution – and who do not have a pending felony charge – to seek the restoration of their ability to vote.

But the ABPP has 44 days to respond to CERV applications, meaning they are not required to consider a CERV to the newly disqualified voters under the law that takes effect on Oct. 1 until Nov. 14 – nine days after the Nov. 5 election.

Legislative procedure

The lawsuit challenges a piece of legislation that was, during the waning days of the legislative session in early May, was viewed as a rare piece of bipartisan election-related legislation.

Its passage was through an unusual process. The bill was resurrected during the last week of the session after it was seemingly defeated by a 4-4-3 vote during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on April 24, which is a rarity during a legislative session. The concerns from Republicans on the Judiciary Committee during the April meeting focused on levying harsh punishments on angry voters engaged in verbal spats with poll workers. The original intent of HB100 was to respond to a rise in threats to poll workers and election officials in other parts of the country – not necessarily in Alabama –since the 2020 presidential election.

The legislation, though, sailed to passage with Allen pushing for it after it was amended on the Alabama House floor to include the additional crimes to the list those disqualifying felons from voting. Rep. Jim Hill, R-Moody, proposed the amendment to add to the list of moral turpitude crimes. He said he supported the idea after he was asked to sponsor the amendment by Allen.

Clarke, the sponsor of HB100, told AL.com Thursday she will let the courts decide the merits of the case.

The League of Women Voters, in late May, expressed concerns about adding additional crimes to those disqualifying voters from elections in Alabama, arguing that the state was encouraging the legacy of Jim Crow. Allen, though, said he felt HB100 – as amended – is a strong crime deterrent.

“I’m not disqualifying anyone from voting as it relates to HB100,” he said to AL.com in May. “It’s the criminals who disqualify themselves when they break the law and wreak havoc on our communities.”

Alabama has a long history of disenfranchising voters for crimes of moral turpitude, going back to the Alabama Constitution of 1901, which was aimed at keeping Blacks and poor whites from voting.

For years, there was no definition moral turpitude, giving county boards of registrars and political appointees discretion over which people convicted of crimes could be disqualified from voting. Voters convicted of misdemeanors and felonies could get disqualified in past years.

In 1985, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Alabama’s disenfranchisement of voters for misdemeanors. Alabama voters approved a new constitutional amendment in 1996 disqualifying votes who committed felonies involving moral turpitude, but there was no definition behind that term.

More than 21 years later in 2017, lawmakers approved the Felony Voter Disqualification Act to define moral turpitude.