Fresh off his appearance testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee, Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill acknowledged he was looking toward the 2019 legislative session to address abuse of the absentee voting process.
In an appearance on Huntsville’s WVNN on Thursday, Merrill explained how hundreds of complaints have been closed, some of which had been referred to various law enforcement agencies to handle.
Merrill insisted there was a necessity to maintain the integrity of absentee balloting to ensure every vote counts the way it was intended.
“We do have some issues that we’re trying to address in this legislative session,” Merrill said to “The Jeff Poor Show.” “We have had 874 complaints that have been closed on voter fraud. Several of those have been closed generally. Some of them have been referred to the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency. Some have been referred to the county sheriff from the district attorney’s office to the Attorney General’s Office. It just depends on what they were.”
“But what we’d like to see is a change in the absentee process, so when people make application, they know that their voice is being heard and their vote is being counted the way it is intended,” he continued. “The other thing that we want to do is to make sure when we have legitimate complaints, they’re followed up on and they’re followed through with by those local officials with which we turn that information over to.”
Merrill offered two examples that raised red flags, one of which was in Wilcox County.
“Let me give you an example, Jeff – when we’ve got a situation where a candidate had 109 absentee ballots mailed to one location, which happens to be his mom’s residence,” Merrill said. “And that still has not been investigated. That’s a problem, my friend. When we have 119 absentee ballots mailed to one location and it’s an abandoned home in the Black Belt in Wilcox County, that’s a problem, my friend. So if we’re not having people pursue that through additional investigative measures and we’re not coming up with warrants for people and indictments for people, that’s a problem. We’re continuing to introduce this until we get somebody who wants to work for the people of the state of Alabama and ensure their rights are protected and their vote is protected because when we allow illegal votes to take place. Jeff, that dilutes real votes cast by legitimate electors in this state.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University, the editor of Breitbart TV and host of “The Jeff Poor Show” from 2-5 p.m. on WVNN in Huntsville.
