Former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones (D-Mountain Brook) is once again claiming that voting laws are too strict in the Yellowhammer State.

Jones made the comments during a symposium Wednesday in Birmingham led by U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Birmingham).

“Alabama does a pretty good job of registering people to vote, but then we just make it hard to get to vote,” Jones said. “You’ve got to go between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. on one day no matter what is going on in your life, no matter what is going on with the weather, that is the time you vote. And if you want to vote absentee you’ve got to jump through a whole bunch of hoops.

“If you want to vote early, you can’t just vote early in Alabama, you’ve got to vote absentee early in Alabama. It’s just a bizarre way of looking at things. But we make it very difficult.”

The symposium, “Shelby County a Decade Later: The Path Forward in Our Ongoing Fight for the Right to Vote,” marked the 10-year anniversary of the Alabama v. Holder Supreme Court ruling that the coverage formula in Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional.

Jones said Alabama has historically been on the wrong side when it comes to the issue of voting rights.

“When we have the ability to restrict voting, we are always on the front lines, right there at the front leading the charge,” he said. “We started immediately right after the Shelby County decision by enacting a very stringent voter ID law, which I think everyone understands, knows the statistics show that really affects communities of color more than it affects anyone else.

“And the problem Alabama had particularly is in the number of IDs, they restrict the number of IDs.”

He also said the current voting laws are one reason why Alabama has lower voter turnout than other states.

“We have seen some record numbers in the number of people voting, but it’s still low,” he argued. “And in the states that were affected by the Voting Rights Act and what the Shelby County decision did, in those states our voting is still below the national average.”

The event was joined by civil rights leaders and lawmakers and discussed “the road ahead for voting rights and ensuring access to the ballot for every eligible American,” according to the website.

Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee