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It is time to stop pretending there is some massive voter suppression effort underway

Did you know today is the last day to register to vote in Alabama?

No? Well, turn on your TV, radio, computer, cell phone or open a newspaper if you can find one and you will probably find some disingenuous hack proclaiming how important it is for you to register to vote.

It’s not hard to register to vote. You can do it right here right now.

But, dishonest politicians across Alabama and elsewhere are constantly pushing a dumb narrative that voter suppression is alive and well in Alabama and elsewhere, even though there is little to no evidence it is actually happening.

Wannabe politicians can’t stop embarrassing themselves. Mallory Hagan is poised to lose her election to Congressman Mike Rogers (R-Saks) and then fade into obscurity. Hagan made the claim that “more than 55,000 voters in the 3rd Congressional District have been disqualified or labeled inactive since February 2017.”

That’s not the only embarrassing thing Hagan has said lately.

https://twitter.com/TheDaleJackson/status/1054368362493566976

https://twitter.com/TheDaleJackson/status/1054379344775315457

But I digress.

Secretary of State John Merrill has been brutally clear on this issue. No one has been denied the right to vote and no one will be denied the right to vote.

In an interview, Merrill told WVNN that all of this is deception by a Democratic Party that has no winning ideas.

Partial transcript as follows:

Dale, that would be zero. Zero. There is no evidence of anybody in this state that has gone to the polls in the last three years, 10 months and three days that I have had the privilege to be your secretary of state, no evidence of anyone who has gone to the polls, wanted to cast their ballot and was unable to do so. Now, they may have been inconvenienced because they had to do their voter update form. They may have been inconvenienced because they had to cast a provisional ballot because they didn’t take care of some things prior to arriving at the polls and then they had to go back and confirm it so their vote would count, but nobody has been turned away because they didn’t have an ID, and nobody has been turned away because they were told “Hey, you can’t participate”​

The reality of this “purge” of voters is simple: If you have not voted in years, you were sent a postcard from the secretary of state’s office informing you that you would soon be moved into inactive status. If you returned the card as requested, you would remain on the rolls. If you did not, you would be removed.

Again, Merrill has explained that zero people have not been able to cast their ballot at the polls. But the stories continue to be written.

Of course, ignorant people will pretend that this means people will not vote. This is untrue. In fact, the people removed incorrectly will go to the polls, they will fill out a form, they will be marked as active, they cast a ballot and that ballot will be counted.

Congressman Mo Brooks, an odd choice for a Republican voter suppression effort, was removed from the rolls for this very reason. He cast the vote, rectified the issue, and later learned the postman did not deliver the postcard

Either way, he voted and his vote counted. This is not a voter suppression effort.

Alabama’s political media needs to stop repeating the foolish machinations of long-shot candidates who are looking for attention. Doing otherwise is just another in a long line of examples of journalistic malpractice or outright deception by said media.

Listen:

@TheDaleJackson is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts a conservative talk show from 7-11 am weekdays on WVNN

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