Alabama's DMV Closures and the Justice Department

The U.S. Department of Justice threatened to sue the State of Alabama in a September letter with a warning to the State Attorney General, Luther Strange, that Alabama failed to comply with a two-decades-old voter registration law.

The National Voter Registration Act is more than 20 years old and allows voter registration at the same office people can receive or renew their drive licenses or other public assistance. But Alabama has never been compliant with the Motor Voter Act.

But the date on the letter, Sept. 8, predated the Alabama Department of Motor Vechile (DMV) closing.

Alabama closed 31 driver's license offices, many in county's with high proportion of black residents, after a tougher voter ID law went into effect. Driver's licenses are on a very short list of government-issued photo IDs that are accepted to vote.

"Our investigation indicates widespread noncompliance with Section 5 in Alabama," Vanita Gupta, principal deputy assistant attorney general, wrote in the letter. "Throughout the state, it appears that applications for an Alabama driver's license or a non-driver identification card do not serve as applications for voter registration with respect to elections for federal office, and that change of address submissions for driver license purposes do not serve as notification of a change of address for voter registration purposes."

Alabama Secretary of Law Enforcement Spencer Collier said discussions on how to bring the State into compliance began before DOJ's September letter.

"As a result, we began discussions with the Secretary of State (SOS) in the spring and in April formulated a plan to better integrate the ability for citizens to register to vote when performing certain driver license functions," Collier said in a statement. "We were well under way when we were contacted by Department of Justice (DOJ). Since that time we have been working with the SOS and in consultation with DOJ in implementing our plan."

CLICK HERE to read the two page (PDF) letter.

In October, 2015, Gov. Robert Bentley announced that the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) would return driver's license examiners to 31 rural counties.

A statement from the Governor's office said an examiner would spend at least one day each month in each of the counties slated to lose part-time examiners under budget cuts announced by ALEA at the end of last month. The schedule and timetable of the return was not immediately clear.











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