In an order issued this week, a judge told the Alabama secretary of state that he could not go ahead with a plan to remove noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls. The judge said that the plan was illegal and had a high rate of mistakes.

Judge Anna Manasco stated that when Secretary of State Wes Allen, a Republican, took away the voting rights of more than 3,200 people because of concerns about their citizenship, it was against the National Voter Registration Act, which says that registered voters cannot be removed in large groups within 90 days of an election.

Manasco wrote that Allen “blew the deadline” when he said that a purge program would start eighty-four days before the 2024 General Election.

Allen told 3,251 registered voters in August that they would be changed to “inactive” status on the Alabama voter roll until they could prove they were a citizen. He said that these voters had been given alien registration numbers. Noncitizens are given alien registration numbers by the Department of Homeland Security. Allen had said that the DHS, which is in charge of keeping records on changes in citizenship status, wouldn’t help him figure out which Alabamans with foreign registration numbers had become citizens.

In response, the Department of Justice filed a case, saying Allen had started a systemic process to remove registered voters, which also deactivated hundreds of voters who had become citizens.

Papers filed in court showed that Allen’s program was flawed because it had disabled about 2,000 citizens, who then had to go through the steps to re-register to vote. In a statement, at least one of the people who was told they were no longer eligible said they had never had an alien registration number and had always been a citizen.

At least 106 people also asked Allen to take their names off the voter rolls because of the program, which meant they could no longer vote.