Voting Rights
Voting is the most fundamental way for people to make their voices heard in the democratic process. But state policy decisions have created or preserved hurdles that make it difficult or impossible for many Alabamians to participate in that process. Arise analyzes these barriers to the ballot box and considers policy solutions to strengthen voting rights and expand civic engagement in Alabama.
Featured Resources
Member Resources
Alabama Arise 2025 legislative priorities
More than 150 Alabama Arise member groups and more than 1,500 individual members choose our legislative priorities each year. This process ensures that Alabamians most impacted by poverty have a seat at the table. Below are the priorities that our members selected for 2025. For a PDF version of this document, click here or click [...]
Fact Sheet
Vote ‘No’ on SB 1 – narrowing voting rights in Alabama
Alabama’s absentee voting application process is already safe and secure. We don’t need to add confusing and frightening requirements to an already secure process. This bill would make it a crime for any person knowingly to provide or receive funding or a gift for distributing, ordering, requesting, collecting, prefilling, completing, obtaining or delivering another person’s [...]
Newsletter
June 2023 newsletter
The June 2023 newsletter features a recap of the 2023 Alabama legislative session as well as coverage from our Legislative Day.
Fact Sheet
Vote ‘No’ on HB 209 – Rep. Kiel’s bill that would narrow voting rights in Alabama
Voting rights are an essential part of the democratic process, and we should be wary of any legislation that unnecessarily prevents people from voting. But HB 209, sponsored by Rep. Jamie Kiel, R-Russellville, would do just that. This bill would make it a felony to assist others in the absentee ballot application and submission process, [...]
Fact Sheet
Expand voting rights to move Alabama beyond its anti-democratic past
Voting rights are a flashpoint in Alabama’s history. The long denial of those rights to Black residents led to Bloody Sunday in Selma, the march to Montgomery and eventually passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In the decades since, our state has taken a few steps that increase voting access for communities of [...]
Fact Sheet
The new poll tax: Court debt and voting rights in Alabama
Everyone should be able to have a voice in governmental decisions that affect their daily lives. Voting is the most straightforward way Alabamians have to shape those decisions. But our state has a long, sad legacy of voter suppression tactics. As a result, Alabama today has more disenfranchised citizens than California, a state with eight [...]
Fact Sheet
Automatic voter registration: Streamlining a basic right
Voting rights are a flashpoint in Alabama’s history. The long denial of those rights to African Americans led to Bloody Sunday in Selma, the march to Montgomery and eventually passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In the half-century since, our state has taken a few steps that increase voting access for communities of [...]
Fact Sheet
A menu of options to improve voting rights in Alabama
Alabama is famous around the world for our historic fights over equal access to the polls. Our entire democratic system depends on how elections are structured and who can participate. When barriers exclude people from voting, they often lose faith in a system that doesn’t seem to value their voice in our society’s decision-making process. [...]
Fact Sheet
All voices heard: How to modernize voting in Alabama
Alabama forever will be linked to the struggle for voting rights. An important question today is whether our state can shed its legacy of voter suppression, or whether we will continue to be seen as hostile to the idea of equal voting access and broad participation in democracy. A 2015 report on healthy democracies ranked Alabama [...]
