Lawsuit says Alabama voter purge targets naturalized citizens

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Voting rights groups have filed a lawsuit against  Alabama’s secretary of state over a policy they said is illegally removing naturalized citizens from voting rolls. Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen announced last month that 3,251 people who had been previously issued noncitizen identification numbers will have their voter registration status made inactive and flagged for possible removal from the voter rolls. The lawsuit filed Friday by the Campaign Legal Center, Fair Elections Center and Southern Poverty Law Center said the purge is wrongly removing naturalized citizens from voter rolls. Republicans across the country have raised concern about the possibility of noncitizens voting, but studies have found that voting by noncitizens is rare.