State Rep. Debbie Wood (R-Valley) is pushing for her election audit bill to pass the Alabama Senate with only three days remaining in the 2025 regular legislative session.
If passed, HB30 would require the judge of probate of each county to conduct a post-election audit after every county and statewide general election to determine the accuracy of the originally reported results of the election.
The legislation passed the House in March, but still faces some obstacles in the Senate. It also has the support of State Auditor Andrew Sorrell and Secretary of State Wes Allen.
Wood discussed the measure on WVNN’s “The Yaffee Program.”
“They haven’t faced close races, and everyone is excited about their own legislation, I get it, but as a state, if we’re going to say that we’re the golden standard, like we told people all these years…then we need to do what’s right and protect the vote, protect the voters, and this is the way to do it,” Wood said. “We are the last state in the United States that does not have some type of post election audit.”
The state lawmaker responded to some of the pushback by Democrats, reminding them that this bill doesn’t prevent anyone from voting.
“You know, there are some Democrats that they typically frown on any type of voting bill, but this bill does not prevent anyone from voting. It doesn’t,” she argued. “It’s not on the front end. It’s not preventing anyone from voting, but it’s doing a count at the end to ensure that we have legal votes in our system and that those tabulators are working properly. That’s what the bill does.”
Similar bills have been introduced the last two years, but failed to make it all the way through. Wood is hoping that this session will be different.
RELATED: Alabama House passes bill requiring post-election audits to ‘ensure public confidence’
“Very disappointed that they didn’t get in my bill, of course, but we’ve got two days left, so what we’re praying for is that the bill gets selected to go back on the calendar,” she said. “Of course, we’re advocating for that. We’re calling everyone that we can call that makes those decisions, and we’re visiting them face to face and asking that they put House Bill 30 back on the calendar, if we can get it on the calendar, I think, based upon the vote that we received in committee, we can, we can get it out.”
Wood emphasized that it’s irresponsible to not check the accuracy and reliability of elections in the Yellowhammer State.
“We did a pilot audit previously, and it did show some errors,” she explained.
“And why we did not continue that after 2021 I really don’t know. It should have been continued. And I’ve heard people say, ‘Well, it was only one vote’ Well, part of my district is Lee County, and three years ago there was a race. It was won by one vote. It happens. What if that was the wrong vote, we don’t know. We don’t know because we’re not checking and it’s just like with our children, if we don’t check on our children, they may do things that they shouldn’t do because we’re not checking on them. So we have to take responsibility and ensure that transparency integrity to the voters, this should be a priority.”
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 Twitter @Yaffee
