Civil rights, voting rights, and disability rights groups announced that they are filing a lawsuit to block Alabama’s new law restricting certain forms of assistance with absentee voting.

The Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, Greater Birmingham Ministries, the League of Women Voters of Alabama and the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program are challenging the new law that makes it a crime to receive payment or pay someone to distribute or collect absentee ballot applications.

The lawsuit says new law is a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, the Voting Rights Act, and the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

Alabama lawmakers passed SB1 by Sen. Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, a bill that Republicans said would stop ballot harvesting, the distribution and collection of absentee ballot applications by third parties to influence elections.

The Republican majority passed the bill over the objections of Democrats and others who said it was unnecessary and would keep elderly and disabled voters from getting the help they need with absentee voting. They pointed to the lack of examples of ballot harvesting cases in Alabama as evidence that the law was not needed.

Gov. Kay Ivey signed the bill on March 20. Secretary of State Wes Allen said it will be in effect for the general election in November.

“SB1 takes Alabama backwards as it violates the law, restricts our basic Constitutional Amendment rights, obliterates freedom of speech,” Benard Simelton, president of the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, said in a press release about the lawsuit. “It marginalizes voters’ access to the ballot box.”

The plaintiffs are represented by the Campaign Legal Center, the Legal Defense Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, and the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program.

The new law adds restrictions and criminal penalties to section 17-11-4 of the code of Alabama, which governs absentee voting applications. The strictest penalties apply to those who receive a payment or pay someone else for helping with applications. Some parts of the new law apply to situations not involving a payment.

The new law:

• Makes it a Class C felony, punishable by one to 10 years in prison, to receive a payment or gift to distribute, order, request, collect, complete, pre-fill, or deliver an absentee ballot application for another voter.
• Makes it a Class B felony, punishable to two to 20 years, to knowingly pay or provide a gift to a third party to distribute, order, request, collect, prefill, complete, obtain, or deliver a voter’s absentee ballot application.
• Says an applicant for an absentee ballot can receive assistance filling out the ballot and that the application must be signed by the applicant and the witness.
• Makes it a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail, to deliver an absentee ballot application to a vote that is pre-filled with the voter’s name or any other information required on the application.
• Specifies that only the voter can return their absentee ballot application to their county’s absentee election manager, either in person or by mail or commercial carrier.
• Requires applicants for absentee ballots to declare they are not barred from voting because of a disqualifying felony conviction or, if they were were convicted of a disqualifying felony, that they have had their right to vote restored.

This story will be updated.