Alabama: Montgomery Probate Judge questions focus on crossover voters | Montgomery Advertiser

Montgomery County Probate Judge Steven Reed Thursday said just 34 of over 15,000 votes were flagged as possible crossover voters in last month’s Republican Senate runoff, and that the actual numbers might be far lower. “To say this is much ado about nothing would be a dramatic understatement,” Reed said in a phone interview. “I’m not even sure why this is being discussed. That’s not a major issue at all.” The Alabama Legislature earlier this year banned voters who cast ballots in one party’s primary from voting in another party’s runoff. The new law made such crossover voting a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $15,000 fine. The law only applies to primaries and runoffs. All registered voters can cast ballots in the Dec. 12 general election for Alabama’s junior U.S. Senate seat.

Alabama: Even sponsors of the crossover voting law disagree on prosecuting cases as voter fraud | WHNT

One sponsor of the new crossover voting law says it’s “ludicrous and laughable on its face” to prosecute crossover voters on felony charges, saying that puts crossover voting on the same level as some kinds of drug trafficking. However, other sponsors of the law supported Secretary of State John Merrill’s efforts to see through the prosecutions. The law in question prevents people from voting in one party’s primary and then crossing over to vote in another party’s primary runoff. The Alabama Legislature`s measure blocking crossover voting, passed this year, didn`t spell out particular penalties, so the Secretary of State`s office is handling potential cases as vote fraud. One of the law’s sponsors, State Senator Bill Holtzclaw (R-Madison), stands behind that interpretation, “I support the law that we passed; I support that there has to be a bite to the bark. If not what`s the value in passing particular legislation like this?” But not all the bill sponsors agree with enforcing it as a Class C Felony, which carries up to 10 years in prison.

Alabama: Probate judge says there were ‘zero’ crossover votes in Jefferson County | AL.com

Jefferson County Probate Judge Alan King said there were no crossover votes cast in the county during the Sept. 26 Republican runoff in the special election for the U.S. Senate. Last week, King had said he believed most of the 380 voters on a preliminary list of crossover voters did not vote that day. In an email today to Secretary of State John Merrill and other officials, King said an investigation by Board of Registrars Chairman Barry Stephenson determined all 380 were attributed to mistakes by poll workers and others. “As (of ) 5 PM last Friday (October 27, 2017) we had every error corrected and there are no ‘cross-over’ votes in Jefferson County,” King wrote (bold in original email).

Alabama: Democrats want to ditch new crossover voting law | AL.com

Some Democratic lawmakers want to repeal Alabama’s new crossover voting law, saying it created rather than solved a problem and its threat of felony-level penalties will discourage voter participation. “The right to vote is just so precious,” Sen. Hank Sanders of Selma said. “And we ought not to be doing things to limit it. And we certainly ought not to be doing things to end up trying to put people in jail.” The law was in force for the first time for the Sept. 26 Republican runoff between Roy Moore and Sen. Luther Strange in the special election for the U.S. Senate. The law prohibits voters who participate in one party’s primary from crossing over and voting in the other party’s runoff. So, voters in the Aug. 15 Democratic primary could not vote in the Republican runoff.

Alabama: Jefferson County probate judge says crossovers not actual votes | AL.com

Jefferson County Probate Judge Alan King said today he believes that most of the county’s 380 voters listed as illegal crossover voters in the Sept. 26 election did not actually vote that day. King said a chief inspector at one precinct misunderstood procedures and crossed off the names of those who voted in the Aug. 15 Democratic primary to ensure they could not vote again in the Republican runoff. “And so, it makes it appear, if someone is looking at our data that yes, someone on Sept. 26 came in and voted and received a Republican ballot on Sept. 26, when the reality is, no they didn’t,” King said. King said that explanation is based on his conversations with Barry Stephenson, chief of the county’s board of registrars. King said they would fully investigate the matter next week.

Alabama: Secretary of State: 5-year prison sentences for intentional crossover voters | AL.com

The ACLU of Alabama says it is “stunned” by Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill’s statements about crossover voters, including comments attributed to Merrill in an interview with ThinkProgress. Merrill said those who knowingly and willingly violated the law should go to prison and pay a hefty fine, according to the publication. “I want every one of them that meets that criteria to be sentenced to five years in the penitentiary and to pay a $15,000 fine for restitution,” Merrill said in the article. Merrill told AL.com it was important to stress that me meant willful violators, including those who might have broken the law to make a point.

Alabama: John Merrill’s office not ready to release names of crossover voters | AL.com

The Alabama secretary of state’s office is not yet releasing the names of 674 voters it believes may have violated the state’s new ban on crossover voting in primary runoffs. John Bennett, communications director for Secretary of State John Merrill, said the names would be disclosed after they are verified by county election officials. Merrill asked county officials to review the list of crossover voters and report any errors by Nov. 6. After the list is confirmed, it will be turned over to prosecutors, Merrill told the Associated Press. He said it would be up to prosecutors whether to pursue charges, but said he believed it was his office’s responsibility to report the violations.

Alabama: Local District Attorneys will decide if hundreds of accused crossover voters will be prosecuted | WHNT

Nearly 700 Alabama voters could be facing up to 10 years in prison and thousands of dollars in fines. Their crime? Voting in the wrong runoff election. Just seven lines of legal code adopted last year, makes all the difference. It’s the Crossover Voting Ban, that makes it illegal for someone who votes in one party’s primary to vote in the runoff of another party. The first test of the law was the recent special election primary to replace Jeff Sessions’ Senate Seat. Over the weekend, Secretary of State John Merrill released the number of violators of the law. Jefferson County leads the state with 380 people accused of crossover voting. Madison County had the second most, with 63 reports. The next highest was Montgomery County with 34. In all, 674 people are accused of breaking the law.

Alabama: Secretary of State Will Give Names of Crossover Voters to Prosecutors | Associated Press

The names of Alabama voters who crossed party lines to vote in last month’s Republican Senate runoff will be given to prosecutors, the state’s election chief said Friday. Secretary of State John Merrill said his office has identified 674 people who voted in the Democratic primary and later voted in the GOP runoff in violation of the state’s new crossover voting ban. Merrill said he plans to send the names to the attorney general and district attorneys after local election officials check the list for errors. The move signals a hardline approach to the new state law — used for the first time in the U.S. Senate runoff — that adds fraudulent crossover voting to the list of other felony voting crimes, such as voting twice. Merrill said it was the “right thing” to report violations but noted that it is prosecutors’ decision on whether to pursue charges.

Alabama: Senator’s proposal would mean fewer special elections | AL.com

An Alabama senator wants to change the way empty seats are filled in the Legislature. Recent vacancies have set the stage for three special elections near the end of four-year terms, elections for seats that will almost immediately be up for grabs again. Under the state Constitution, when a lawmaker resigns, dies or is removed from office, the governor schedules a special election, and the seat stays empty until the election is decided. Sen. Rusty Glover, R-Semmes, proposes amending the Constitution so that if a vacancy occurs during the last two years of the term, the governor would appoint a replacement to finish the term. The appointee could not run for a full term.

Alabama: Russian invasion? Roy Moore sees spike in Twitter followers from land of Putin | Montgomery Advertiser

At least 1,100 Russian-language accounts followed Republican U.S. Senate nominee Roy Moore’s Twitter account over the past few days. Moore’s team says they want to know why. “We had absolutely nothing to do with this,” said Drew Messer, a spokesman for the campaign, on Monday. “We’ve never purchased followers or dummy ads on Twitter. We’ve asked Twitter to look into this.” The increase helped push Moore’s following on Twitter from about 27,000 accounts on Friday to over 47,000, ahead of Democratic nominee Doug Jones, who has about 39,000 followers on Twitter. Many of the new followers for Moore appear to be bots, with only a handful of followers and generic profile art, including photos of singer Avril Lavigne.

Alabama: Election officials remain confused over which felons should be able to vote | AL.com

A number of election officials across Alabama remain confused about the impacts of a sweeping new felon disenfranchisement law, according to interviews this week with registrars representing 12 counties. The new law, which took effect in August, clarified which felons are allowed to vote and what steps they need to take to restore that right. But four registrars told AL.com this week that they were not entirely clear about the intricacies of the law and how it applies to their duties. And multiple nonprofits and advocates told AL.com last month that they were working with people who were being wrongly barred from regaining the right to vote because the law is not being properly and consistently followed.

Alabama: Court rejects Alabama redistricting challenge | Montgomery Advertiser

A three-judge federal panel Thursday dismissed a challenge to new district maps approved by the Alabama Legislature last spring. The judges unanimously ruled that plaintiffs who challenged three Jefferson County districts redrawn under the plan lacked standing to bring their challenge and had failed to provide a standard for the court to consider.  A message seeking comment was sent Thursday evening to the Alabama attorney general’s office, which represented the state in the case. Attorney James Blacksher, who represented plaintiffs in the case, said Thursday evening the issue would likely come back after the next Census. “It leaves the question open for 2020,” he said.

Alabama: In wake of reports, Alabama clarifies that some felons can vote despite debts | AL.com

Alabama has clarified its voting rights policy in response to a report by AL.com. Secretary of State John Merrill said via email Thursday that a class of felons featured in a Wednesday AL.com story are in fact eligible to register to vote, despite the fact that a number of them said they had recently applied for and been denied that right. Felons like Randi Lynn Williams are in fact eligible to immediately regain their voting rights, according to Merrill. Williams, a 38-year-old Dothan woman who was convicted of fraudulent use of a credit card in 2011, would not have lost the right to vote under a new state law that went into effect in August.

Alabama: Too poor to vote: How Alabama’s ‘new poll tax’ bars thousands of people from voting | AL.com

Randi Lynn Williams assumes she will never be able to afford to vote again. The 38-year-old Dothan resident lost her right to vote in 2008, when she was convicted of fraudulent use of a credit card. She was on probation for over two years, then served a few months behind bars ending in early 2011, at which point she would have been eligible to vote in most states. In Maine and Vermont, she would have never lost that right in the first place. But in Alabama and eight other states from Nevada to Tennessee, anyone who has lost the franchise cannot regain it until they pay off any outstanding court fines, legal fees and victim restitution. In Alabama, that requirement has fostered an underclass of thousands of people who are unable to vote because they do not have enough money.

Alabama: Merrill says Dems who illegally vote Tuesday could face jail time | Alabama Today

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill said he’s received reports from several voting locations where Alabamians who voted in the Aug. 15 Democratic primary were attempting to cast ballots in Tuesday’s GOP runoff. According to Alabama state law, that’s considered voter fraud and is illegal. State residents are prohibited to vote in one party’s primary and later voting in the other party’s runoff election. The process, deemed “crossover voting,” was made illegal earlier this year in an attempt to limit cross-party candidate selection as Alabamians are not required to register to a specific party to vote, but may only vote in one party’s primary.

Alabama: Probate judge: Election integrity group should look to expand, not limit, voting rights | AL.com

Alan King, the lone Alabama representative on President Donald Trump’s Election Integrity Commission, couldn’t attend the panel’s meeting Tuesday in New Hampshire. But King, the chief election officer and probate judge for Jefferson County, let the commission know how he felt about what he sees as an effort to keep people from voting rather than expanding the right to vote. “It is my sincere hope and prayer that this Commission will focus on the real election issues facing the United States of America, including alleged ‘hacking’ by the Russians, instead of spending precious time focusing on non-issues to deprive American citizens from voting,” King, a Democrat, stated in a recent 5-page report to the panel.

Alabama: Lawsuit challenging racial makeup of Alabama courts moves forward | AL.com

Despite accounting for more than one-quarter of the state’s population, African-Americans rarely get elected to the state’s highest courts – a situation advocacy groups want to change by ending statewide judicial elections. Their argument got a boost this week after a federal judge rejected motions to dismiss a lawsuit brought last fall by the NAACP of Alabama and The Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The organizations filed suit against the state of Alabama and Secretary of State John Merrill. The lawsuit alleges that the practice of holding statewide elections for Alabama’s 19 appellate judges disenfranchises black voters. Instead, civil rights groups propose creating districts for elections, increasing the odds for black candidates in majority-black districts.

Alabama: Bill would align special U.S. Senate races with general elections | Times Daily

In the future, any special U.S. Senate races would happen during a general election cycle and not in a separate off-cycle election like the one currently underway, according to proposed legislation. Rep. Steve Clouse, R-Ozark, has pre-filed for next year’s session a bill to allow the governor to appoint an interim senator until the next general election, which happen every two years. Cost is a driving concern, Clouse said today. The Legislative Fiscal Office estimates that the primary, runoff and general election this year to replace Jeff Sessions will each cost about $3.5 million.

Alabama: Groups Asks Alabama to Restore Voters to ‘Active’ Status | Associated Press

A civil rights organization is asking Alabama’s secretary of state to restore hundreds of thousands of people to active voter status after what the group described as widespread confusion in election day. In a Friday letter to Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, the Southern Poverty Law Center said it believes large numbers of people were incorrectly moved to inactive voting status during an update of rolls. Merrill responded that his office followed the law. The secretary of state’s office said 340,162 people were put on inactive voter status in the required update of voting rolls.

Alabama: Why thousands of Alabama voters were moved to “Inactive Voter’ list | WPMI

Many voters were confused at the polls Tuesday because even though they had voted in the presidential race, they were told they were on the inactive voter list. The Alabama Secretary of State’s Office says out of the state’s 3.3 million voters, 340,162 were moved to the inactive list this year. Every four years, according to federal and state law, cards are sent to voters to verify their address. If they’re marked return to sender twice, the voter is put on the inactive list. Local 15 production assistant Caitlin Smith has lived in this same apartment for a year and voted in the presidential election.

Alabama: Judge blocks motion to immediately restore voting rights of many felons | AL.com

A federal judge turned down an advocacy group’s request that Alabama swiftly reinstate many recently convicted felons’ voting rights and take immediate steps to educate people about the impact of a new state law that restores access to the ballot for tens of thousands of felons. Chief District Judge W. Keith Watkins denied a request for preliminary injunction in a lawsuit against the state brought on behalf of 10 Alabama citizens by the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit. “Plaintiffs have not met their high burden for obtaining a mandatory preliminary injunction,” Watkins wrote in his Friday opinion. “They have failed to demonstrate that any of the preliminary injunction factors weighs in their favor.”

Alabama: Federal Judge Says Alabama Doesn’t Have To Tell Felons They May Now Be Able To Vote | HuffPost

Alabama election officials don’t have to immediately educate impacted people about a change in state voting qualifications that clarified tens of thousands of felons have the right to vote, a federal judge ruled Friday. The ruling came in response to a request from lawyers from the Campaign Legal Center, on behalf of 10 voters over a law that prohibited anyone who committed a “felony of moral turpitude” from voting. In May, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) signed a law defining exactly which offenses constituted a crime of moral turpitude, earning widespread praise. But Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill (R) told HuffPost in June the state wouldn’t undertake any effort to target people affected by the change and let them know they’re now eligible to vote.

Alabama: State clashes with advocacy group in federal court over felony disenfranchisement suit | AL.com

Lawyers for the state of Alabama sparred Tuesday afternoon in federal court in Montgomery with attorneys representing a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit over issues related to Alabama’s felony disenfranchisement law. The hearing centered on a request by the Campaign Legal Center, a voting rights advocacy group, that Chief District Judge W. Keith Watkins force the state to take steps to educate thousands of convicted felons that they may be eligible to vote under a new state law. The organization is also asking Watkins to force the state to automatically add to the voting rolls several thousand convicted felons who applied to register to vote in recent years but were denied that opportunity, yet are now eligible to regain the franchise under the new law. “An issue will be ordered forthwith,” Watkins said at the conclusion of the hearing, without offering a specific timeframe for a ruling on the Campaign Legal Center’s request for a preliminary injunction, which was initially filed June 30.

Alabama: Group suing to force Alabama to add thousands of convicted felons to state voting rolls | AL.com

Alabama state voting rolls show that more than 66,000 convicted felons lost the right to vote under the state’s felony disenfranchisement law, many of whom may now be eligible to regain the right to vote under a new state law. And a nonprofit is now asking the state to automatically register several thousand former felons who applied but were denied the opportunity to vote. The Campaign Legal Center, a Washington, D.C.-based voting rights advocacy group, heads to U.S. District Court in Montgomery Tuesday afternoon for a hearing on a motion the organization filed June 30 on behalf of 10 plaintiffs.

Alabama: ‘Restoration clinics’ to help felons register to vote under new Alabama law | AL.com

In March 1965, Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church in Selma served as the starting line of the two famous marches toward Montgomery that propelled the voting rights movement into the national consciousness. Four months later, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law, ushering in a new era of increased access to the polls for African-Americans and other minorities across the South and beyond. On Saturday, a new voting rights effort kicked off inside that historic church, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once spoke and Selma marchers nursed their wounds after being beaten by state troopers near the Edmund Pettus Bridge 52 years ago.

Alabama: Group wants Alabama to educate voters about new voting law | Associated Press

A voting rights group has asked a federal judge to force Alabama to tell people that they could be eligible to vote after previously being disqualified for a felony conviction. U.S. District Judge W. Keith Watkins on Wednesday scheduled a July 25 hearing on the Campaign Legal Center’s injunction request. The Campaign Legal Center last week asked Watkins to require the state to implement an education campaign and take other steps, after lawmakers approved legislation clarifying which felonies cause a person to lose voting rights. The group also asked the state to reinstate eligible voters and disclose all voter registration applicants and voter registrants who were denied the right to vote on the basis of conviction in the past two years.

Alabama: Registering felons to vote in jail: How a new Alabama law impacts voting rights | AL.com

Spencer Trawick lost the right to vote when he was convicted of felony third-degree burglary for breaking into a Dothan house in 2015. As an 18-year-old at the time, he had registered to vote only months before he got in trouble, so he was disappointed to learn that he had been barred from casting a ballot in Alabama. But on Monday, Trawick filled out a registration form while inside the Dothan City Jail with the help of Pastor Kenneth Glasgow, a civil rights advocate who has been registering inmates to vote for more than a decade. “You’re registered to vote, man! You’re a full citizen now,” Glasgow told Trawick after he filled out a voter registration form supplied by the Dothan pastor. “You can say, ‘All right, I [am] a citizen!'”

Alabama: New law more clearly defines which felons can lose their voting rights | WRBL

A new Alabama law now allows some convicted felons to earn back the right to vote. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed he bill into law in May, reversing the more than century-old rule. While state lawmakers could not decide how to spend nearly $1 billion on prison reform, they could all agree on one thing. After 116 years, Alabama lawmakers decided it was time to let several criminals have a second chance to make their voices heard. The defining, unanimous push behind state Sen. Mike Jones’ (R-AL, District 92) bill ultimately changed a law dating back to 1901. Rep. Chris Blackshear (R-AL, District 80) says the new law specifically lists more than 40 felonies that would automatically strip criminals of voting rights.

Alabama: Law could allow more people to vote | Associated Press

Alabama might allow more former felons to vote in upcoming elections after lawmakers, for the first time, approved a definitive list of what crimes will cause someone to lose their voting rights. Alabama lawmakers last month gave final approval to legislation that defines a crime of “moral turpitude” that will cause someone to lose their voting rights. The measure, which was signed into law by Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, is aimed at ending confusion over who can, and can’t vote, because of prior convictions. The new list of 46 types of felonies includes robbery, assault, felony theft and drug trafficking but not offenses such as drug possession.