A US federal court on Wednesday partially blocked enforcement of an Alabama law criminalizing absentee ballot assistance. The court sided with a coalition of plaintiffs who argued the law would violate the rights of disabled, blind, and low-literacy voters.

The judge enjoined several sections of Senate Bill 1 (SB1). The bills Submission Provision restricted an individual from appointing a third party to return their absentee ballot unless they are “seeking emergency medical treatment within five days before an election.” The Payment Provision prohibited a third party from “knowingly” accepting payment or paying a third party to “distribute, order, request, collect, prefill, complete, obtaining, or delivering a voter’s absentee ballot application.” Similarly, the Gift Provision barred third parties from “knowingly” receiving or providing a gift to complete an absentee ballot application.

Judge R. David Proctor concluded that the provisions violated Section 208 of the federal Voting Rights Act, which allows “[a]ny voter who requires assistance to vote by reason of blindness, disability, or inability to read or write” to be “given assistance by a person of the voter’s choice.” Enforcement of SB1’s Submission and Payment and Gift provisions would criminalize a protected class of voters from “obtaining the assistance of a person of their choice,” according to Proctor.

Proctor relied on similar federal court cases in North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin, in which the courts ruled that the federal Voting Rights Act superseded state law under the US Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. The clause allows federal laws to take precedence over conflicting state laws. Proctor stated that “when state action is taken that renders an individual unable to vote, that results in irreparable harm.”

The court limited its injunction to “blind, disabled, or illiterate voters, within the meaning of Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act.” The prohibitions were allowed to continue for voters falling outside of Section 208 protections.

Alabama is one of numerous states attempting to reform voting procedures. Efforts to re-district the state were struck down by the US Supreme Court in 2023 when the court ruled the state violated the Voting Rights Act by drawing congressional districts along racial lines.