State Auditor Andrew Sorrell, who is also a candidate for Alabama Secretary of State in 2026, believes a recent election controversy in the state is proof that a new election security division is needed.
Sorrell has been campaigning on the issue, calling for the new division to be a part of the Secretary of State’s office.
“Other states have election integrity divisions, but Alabama does not,” Sorrell’s campaign website argues. “I will create a new division whose sole responsibility is cleaning up voter rolls, investigating fraud, and hardening our election system against cheating and manipulation, Many complaints of election fraud happen each election cycle, and it is important that we have an adequate size staff to investigate these claims.”
Sorrell argued that the recent finding of election fraud in Fort Deposit, Alabama is why there needs to be a change.
Lowndes County Circuit Judge Cleveland Poole found that hundreds of illegal absentee votes had been cast in the area’s municipal election back in August. Poole then called for a new election that will take place on January 13, 2026.
Sorrell also discussed the topic recently on WVNN’s “The Yaffee Progam.”
“So what happens is they have really good election turnout. In fact, in a town of about 900 people, they have over 1,000 votes. That’s about 120%,” Sorrell explains. “Anytime you have more votes cast then there are registered voters in the district that that’s election fraud, all right, so, but the story gets worse. Half of the votes, over half of the votes that were cast in that election were absentee.”
The candidate said this is enough proof that election fraud does happen in the Yellowhammer State.
“And the shocking thing is, it happens,” he said. “And the reason people think it doesn’t happen is because they don’t hear about it. But it is happening. This is not isolated. This case is obviously extreme, but this is happening all over Alabama. There are people stealing votes in Alabama, by the way, I think it happens on both sides of the aisle. I don’t think this is just a Democrat problem. I think people are out there trying to steal Republican primaries too, and this is why we need my election integrity division.”
Sorrell also said he came up with the idea before anyone else in the race.
“I was talking about this for a full 10 months before my opponent got in the race and and renamed my election integrity division,” he said. “So, yes, I think this is an original idea. You’ve seen. Many of my campaign ideas are already starting to be implemented into policy. Apparently, I put together a really good platform.”
Sorrell is running against Montgomery attorney Caroleene Dobson, a former congressional candidate who grew up on her family’s fifth-generation cattle farm in Monroe County.
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 X @Yaffee
