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Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Alabama's current, former top election officials clash over voter rolls
Voters at Alabama A&M University pass a voting sign after voting at Elmore Gym during Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024 in Huntsville, Ala. (Eric Schultz for Alabama Reflector) A simmering disagreement between Alabama's current and former top election officials has erupted into a public and personal feud between Secretary of State Wes Allen and his predecessor, John Merrill, with both trading accusations of dishonesty and misrepresentation. The dispute centers on the management of Alabama's voter rolls, Allen's withdrawal of the state from a multi-state voter data consortium and claims of success in cleaning voter lists, which Merrill contested. The exchange between the two Republicans escalated rapidly from policy disagreements to sharp personal attacks involving past scandals. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Merrill said in a phone interview Tuesday morning that there has not been any incident previously that would have violated the public's trust in a system historically used by a majority of states. 'They have actually used their campaign to promote Secretary Allen personally, because he was the only person that spoke about the initiative,' Merrill said. Merrill penned an opinion column on Sunday challenging statements Allen made in recent press releases and during congressional testimony about the state of Alabama's voter rolls when Allen took office. Merrill, who served two terms as Secretary of State from 2015 to 2023, accused Allen of mischaracterizing the state of the voter rolls he inherited and inflating his administration's accomplishments. 'Since taking office in 2023, Secretary Allen has repeatedly mischaracterized both my tenure and the work of the professionals in the Secretary of State's Office,' Merrill wrote in the opinion column. 'He has overstated his efforts in 'clearing up' the voter rolls, inflating numbers, and presenting a misleading picture of the state's voter rolls.' Merrill specifically took issue with Allen's claim that the state voter file was a 'bloated mess' and that Allen's new system, the Alabama Voter Integrity Database (AVID), allowed the removal of over half a million ineligible voters since taking office. AVID replaced Alabama's participation in the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a data-sharing program used by dozens of states to identify voters who have moved or died. In the phone interview, he criticized Allen for an attempt last year to remove 3,200 voters from the rolls prior to the presidential election after alleging they were living in the country without authorization. A federal judge blocked Allen's action, saying it took place after a deadline to make election changes. 'After the actual investigation was conducted, it was determined that most of the people that had been ordered to be removed were actually US citizens and were here legally, and that was a major problem,' Merrill said. Allen provided a brief response Tuesday afternoon. 'I will never apologize for ensuring only United States citizens vote in Alabama elections,' Allen wrote. Merrill argued that the core components Allen touts as part of AVID – using data from the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, the U.S. Postal Service's National Change of Address file, Social Security death data, and agreements with other states – were already in use during his administration, alongside ERIC. He said that AVID lacks a key feature of ERIC, including identifying potential instances of voters casting ballots in multiple states during the same election cycle. 'I agree with John Merrill,' said David Kimball, a professor of political science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis who conducts research on election administration, in an email Tuesday afternoon, adding that ERIC allows a state to compare its voter file with those from every state that is part of the ERIC network, which is a majority of U.S. states. Merrill also challenged Allen's figures, saying that that official state data shows a net increase of nearly 67,000 registered voters since Allen took office, adding that the numbers dont reflect current voter registration data. Merrill said that to reach the current total after such removals, Allen's office would have had to register an average number of new voters far exceeding the yearly average achieved during Merrill's tenure. 'The math does not add up,' Merrill said. Allen's response dismissed Merrill's policy. 'Unfortunately, it is not surprising that a man whose time in office was marked by obscene sodomy scandals and repeated lies to the people that he was elected to serve, would not hesitate to press send on a false statement,' Allen stated in a response to questions from Yellowhammer News. Merrill in 2021 acknowledged to that he had an 'inappropriate relationship' with a woman who was not his wife. The revelation led Merrill to end a campaign for U.S. Senate. Allen, who plans to run for lieutenant governor in 2026, said 591,915 new voters registered since January 2023, slightly more than Merrill had estimated would be needed. He characterized Merrill's defense of ERIC as defending a 'liberal organization' and criticized Merrill's past meetings with figures like independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and officials in Russia and China during his time in office. Merrill Tuesday called Allen's response 'name-calling, innuendo, and personal attacks' that did not address points raised about voter roll management and AVID. Merrill framed past infidelity mentioned by Allen as an opportunity to speak about forgiveness and redemption, stating he had worked to restore relationships and forgiven Allen for the attacks. 'I have also been able to forgive Secretary Allen for his personal attacks on me, which included using derogatory names and condemning my past instead of offering the support a Christian brother should provide,' he said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen announces bid for lieutenant governor
Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen walks toward a podium during inauguration ceremonies at the Alabama State Capitol on Monday, Jan. 16, 2023 in Montgomery, Alabama. Allen announced in a news release he will run for Lt. Governor. (Stew Milne/Alabama Reflector) Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen said Tuesday he plans to seek the Republican Party's nomination for lieutenant governor. Allen, serving his first term as secretary of state, said in a statement that he was 'incredibly proud' of the work he had done in the office. 'The Lt. Governor seat will be an open seat in the 2026 election and I believe it is time for me to take my record of conservative, effective leadership to that office,' the statement said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth, widely expected to run for governor, has served two terms and is constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive one. The lieutenant governor presides over the Alabama Senate and breaks ties in the chamber; has some appointment powers and becomes governor should that office become vacant. The office used to have significant power over committee appointments and the flow of legislation in the Senate, but those powers were given to the Senate President Pro Tem after a weeks-long standoff between then-Lt. Gov. Steve Windom, a Republican, and the Democratic-controlled Senate in 1999. Allen served as the probate judge for Pike County for 10 years before winning election to the Alabama House of Representatives in 2018. He was elected Secretary of State in 2022. Allen garnered attention in 2023 when he rescinded the state from the Electronic Registration Information Center system in which member states shared information with one another about people on their voter rolls. The Secretary of State's Office created the Alabama Voter Integrity Database that sought to recreate the information that Alabama received as part of the ERIC system. Observers said AVID largely duplicated the functions of ERIC. Allen had previously made an inaccurate claim on a conservative radio talk show that ERIC was launched with funding from George Soros, the liberal billionaire and frequent target of the right. The secretary of state is the lead defendant in Allen v. Milligan, the federal court case that led to the redrawing of Alabama's congressional map in 2023. The bulk of the arguments for the state were handled by the Alabama Attorney General's Office. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
