Last week, the Jefferson County Commission voted to take the unprecedented step of opening its courthouses on Saturday for in-person absentee voting, a decision of which was in part driven by concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.
Claims of voting improprieties have since surfaced. However, those claims have been dismissed by Secretary of State John Merrill, the state’s top election official, as unfounded.
During an interview with Mobile radio’s FM Talk 106.5 on Tuesday, Jefferson County Republican Party chairman Paul DeMarco decried the procedures recently put in place in Jefferson County. He argued the pandemic protocols for this election had been coopted to allow for early voting.
“Let’s start off with the proposition of how we even got here, Jeff,” he said. “We don’t have early voting in Alabama. Other states do. We don’t. But we have this issue with absentee ballots, and you have to have a reason why. And the Secretary of State said because of COVID that you could say you are concerned about COVID if you want to use an absentee ballot. The reason why we have all of these absentee ballots is because of COVID. However, what we have seen is this is just being used as an excuse for people to early vote. People are coming in vans. They’re having parties. There is congregating in groups. If you didn’t get COVID before you came to absentee [vote] at one of these events, it seems like you’re more likely to have it when you leave.”
“We have this rule, and people are taking complete advantage,” DeMarco continued. “And anybody who doesn’t believe that is naive — to think that folks are coming to vote because they’re concerned about COVID. They’re completely using this as an excuse because you can’t think going to a place where there’s hundreds and hundreds of people and congregating and riding in a van together, as opposed to going to a smaller location, is not going to expose you to more of an opportunity of getting COVID as is going on right now. That, to me, is as frustrating as anything.”
DeMarco also walked through several other areas where absentee voting has been problematic, adding that could impact Election Day voting.
“What we’ve done in Jefferson County is we’ve turned them into precincts,” he said. “It was supposed to be, ‘Oh, come do your absentee ballots,’ but now we’ve turned it into precincts. Meanwhile, we’ve got some folks who’ve said they’ve mailed their absentee applications a month ago, and they haven’t gotten them back. The circuit clerk is three weeks behind. And some people haven’t even gotten [the absentee ballots]. And yet, we’re opening the courthouses on Saturdays to take even more folks. And they can’t keep up with what they’re doing with the other people, who had mailed them a month ago. And there’s no way to track what’s happening with these other folks who have filled out applications.”
“Another thing is on Election Day, you’re going to be putting poll workers in some places,” DeMarco added. “Well, there are going to be some places where a bunch of people have done absentee ballots — they don’t need the poll workers, while other places where folks say, ‘We don’t trust our absentee ballot will be in time. They’re going to have more people waiting in line. It has become a big mess. In addition to that, you have got people in these lines passing out in Jefferson County ballots marked, marked ballots, who are intermingling with the people in line. So that has become an issue. Candidly, it is a real concern to a lot of us who want to make sure the integrity of the process of every single vote is there, that everybody gets to vote, including those who are going to show up on Election Day and do not want to wait in long lines because of what’s going on now. You’ve got so many folks doing absentee ballots now. So, it’s a real concern all the way around, and I think there needs to be some of these issues addressed during the next legislative session.”
Lines were reported outside the Jefferson County Courthouse on Saturday by those waiting to cast their absentee ballots, and courthouses are slated to be opened this upcoming Saturday as well.
Similar circumstances were reported outside the Mobile County Government Annex, even with some turned away. Mobile County has enacted similar absentee voting procedures.
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly, and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.
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