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A federal lawsuit claims Alabama voters’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights are violated by a registration process that requires an oath swearing the words “so help me God.”
Filed Oct. 1 in Alabama’s Southern Division by the Freedom From Religion Foundation on behalf of four plaintiffs, the lawsuit claims the Secretary of State is “coercing a statement of belief in a monotheistic deity by requiring nontheists to swear ‘so help me God’ in order to register to vote.”
“The Alabama Secretary of State is violating basic First Amendment freedoms by unconstitutionally compelling Alabama — and United States — citizens who want to register to vote to swear ‘so help me God’ in violation of their conscience,” the plaintiffs said.
The lawsuit alleges Alabama voters are “placed … in the position of acceding to the violation of one of her First Amendment rights in order to exercise another constitutional right” by requiring this kind of oath.
One of the named plaintiffs, Randall Cragun, says he’s “unable to swear ‘so help me God'” and took issue with signing his mail-in Alabama voter registration attesting such.
He points to the language used in the voter declaration portion warning Alabama voters of falsely signed statements and prison sentences for up to “five years.”
According to court documents, the Secretary of State’s Elections Director Clay Helms told Cragun there wasn’t another option.
“There is not a legal mechanism to register to vote in [Alabama] without signing the oath as it is stated,” Helms reportedly told Cragun in November 2019. “If you cross out a portion, the board of registrars in your county will reject the application and ask you to re-submit.”
The lawsuit further explains how the Freedom From Religion Foundation sent notice to Alabama’s Secretary of State independently from Cragun around the same time.
A response, according to court documents, was sent by the Secretary of State’s attorney Hugh Evans III: Alabama voter registration forms are “prescribed by statute” and that “any changes would require legislative action.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation rejected that claim, according to The Associated Press, further asserting Alabama’s Secretary of State has the authority.
Plaintiffs allege by doing so, Alabama’s Secretary of State “willfully excluded nontheist citizens from registering to vote by failing to address their complaints about the required ‘so help me God’ oath.”
Even more, the lawsuit alleges, “the Secretary of State’s official policy is to hinder the registration of voters who are unable to swear ‘so help me God.’”
Alabama is the only state in the United States that requires voters to register on a form that mandates that they swear “so help me God,” according to the lawsuit.
“It is deplorable that in our secular nation nontheistic citizens are encountering a religious test to register to vote,” Freedom From Religion Foundation Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor said.
Furthermore, the plaintiffs say voter registration in Alabama is the only instance where an oath “so help me God” is required. Alabama “routinely allow[s] attorneys, jurors, witnesses, and many others who must take an oath to make a secular affirmation instead.”
“The Secretary of State has created numerous other forms related to elections and election activities that include an oath but omit the language ‘so help me God,’” the lawsuit claims.
The plaintiffs cite previous case law in the lawsuit, specifically Nicholson v. Bd. of Comm’rs of Alabama State Bar Ass’n, which found the requirement of “swear[ing] an oath invoking the help of God” violated the state’s constitution.
The lawsuit goes on to cite the “fixed star in our constitutional constellation” recognized in W. Virginia State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette that “no official … can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word.”
Plaintiffs further claim The Supreme Court settles in Torcaso v. Watkins “that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionality force a person ‘to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.’”
The lawsuit elaborates how Alabama voters are unique compared to the rest of the U.S. in requiring a “so help me God” oath, claiming the only other state with similar terms, North Dakota, “does not require voters to register at all.”
With this lawsuit, “the plaintiffs seek to ensure that the Secretary of State provides forms that allow individuals who are unable to swear ‘so help me God’ to be able to register to vote.”
Formally, the lawsuit alleges Alabama’s secretary of state infringes on the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment, as well as the Free Speech and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Are you an atheist Alabama voter? Let us know in the comments below.
Counsel representing plaintiffs in this lawsuit are Steven P. Gregory of Gregory Law Firm, P.C.; Patrick C. Elliott and Elizabeth Cavell of Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc.
The Alabama Voters “So Help Me God” Lawsuit is Cragun, et al. v. Merrill, Case No. 2:20-cv-01517-ACA, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Southern Division.
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