The Alabama Supreme Court on Friday refused to reconsider a ruling that erased a Democrat sheriff’s two-vote “victory” in Conecuh County, handing Alabama Republicans a long-sought election integrity victory nearly four years after voters went to the polls.

The court overruled Sheriff Randy Brock’s application for rehearing and left intact its June decision that two ballots counted for the Democrat during a 2022 recount were not lawful votes. Without them, Brock and Republican challenger Mike Blackmon are tied at 2,226 votes each.

Brock has held the office since January 2023.

Alabama Republican Party Chairman and State Rep. Scott Stadthagen (R-Hartselle), said the decision protects every voter in the state.

“This is a win not only for Mike Blackmon, but for every Alabama voter who expects our elections to be decided by lawful votes and according to the law,” Stadthagen said. “When an election comes down to just two votes, every ballot matters.”

“Justice McCool said it best: ‘Election integrity is therefore foundational to, and is the fundamental safeguard of, our system of government.’

We could not agree more. This decision sends a clear message that Alabama’s election laws matter and must be upheld.”

The two ballots were cast on Election Day and rejected by the voting machines. Neither voter filled in the oval next to any candidate or any party. Both scribbled over the Alabama Democratic Party’s logo in the straight-ticket section, and both had correctly blackened ovals elsewhere on the same ballot to vote on constitutional amendments.

The county canvassing board counted both as straight-ticket Democratic votes in the Nov. 18, 2022, recount, turning a certified tie into a 2,228-2,226 Brock win.

Justice Chris McCool, writing for the court, said the ballot instructed voters, “TO VOTE YOU MUST BLACKEN THE OVAL COMPLETELY!” and that both voters had shown they could follow it. The marks on the logo, he wrote, may have been “mere ‘scribblings’ or perhaps even a defiant ‘scratching out’ of the ‘logo’ of the political party they did not prefer.”

“If those voters’ voices have now been ‘mut[ed]’ by the exclusion of their ballots, it is they who have muted them, not this Court,” McCool wrote.

The June decision was 4-2, with three justices recused.

Retired Mobile County Circuit Judge Braxton Kittrell, a Democrat assigned to the case, had ruled for Brock in May 2025 after a contest that took nearly two and a half years to reach trial.

Kittrell wrote that “the interests of justice and public confidence in the electoral process would not be served if the results of an election were overturned two and one-half years after the election.”

The Supreme Court rejected that reasoning, holding that nothing in Alabama law makes “the mere passage of time” grounds for denying a valid contest. In a footnote, the court said “the blame for much of the delay in this case may be placed not solely on Blackmon but also on the trial court and Brock.”

Blackmon’s challenge to three absentee ballots did not survive. Voters testified at trial that other people collected and filled out their absentee ballots. Kittrell described them as “marginally-educated or illiterate voters,” called one woman who swore she never cast the ballot counted in her name “evasive and wholly unpersuasive,” and let every ballot stand. The Supreme Court said witness credibility was Kittrell’s call to make.

Kittrell also noted that the ballot harvesting laws the Republican-led Legislature has since enacted were not in effect in 2022.

Secretary of State Wes Allen, shown undercover recordings of Conecuh County voters in 2024, said: “If this audio is authenticated and if it was recorded in Alabama, I am outraged.”

Blackmon’s attorney, Bryan Taylor, a former state senator from Prattville and former general counsel to Govs. Bob Riley and Kay Ivey, said the case exposed a wider problem.

“Make no mistake, it didn’t just happen in this sheriff’s race,” Taylor said. “We only know about it because the result in this race was so close it went to a recount and an election contest.”

The case returns to Conecuh Circuit Court with the count tied. Alabama law says a tie for a county office “shall be decided by lot by the judge of probate of the county in the presence of the candidates.”

The county announced a coin toss for the race in November 2022 and never held it.