LDF Urges Alabama Secretary of State’s Office to Prevent Voting Issues in Future Elections
Today, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) sent a response letter to Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill. In the letter, LDF urges his office to take concrete and specific steps to address the issues that were reported to LDF and that our volunteers observed on the ground during the December 12, 2017 Special U.S. Senate Election. To prevent these issues from reoccurring in subsequent elections, LDF requested investigations into the extent to which poll workers in Alabama were incorrectly requiring the address of voters to match their photo ID, as well as into why “inactive” voters were wrongly turned away or directed to cast provisional ballots. LDF asked that any investigative findings should be made public. We also advised the Secretary on how the Re-Identification Form should be changed to comply with the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act. LDF offered to further discuss these suggestions and the legal authority cited in the letter with Merrill and his team.
Read our full letter here.
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Founded in 1940, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is the nation’s first civil and human rights law organization and has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or LDF.
