State Rep. Joe Lovvorn (R-Auburn) believes elections audits are a necessary tool to ensure trust by voters in the Yellowhammer State.
“Just transparency and accountability,” Lovvorn said Tuesday on Longshore & McKnight.
“This is a post election audit bill. It’s not going to change the results of any election, but if we have a problem with a voting machine that’s not working correctly or something in our process, this will identify it so we can fix it before the next election, and I hope that we do these post election audits and find absolutely zero things wrong.”
Alabama House Republicans passed legislation carried by Lovvorn to require a post-election audit after every countywide and statewide general election.
“And what that will do is prove to the people of Alabama that their vote counts, that their vote is accurate, and when they step up in these elections, it matters,” Lovvorn continued.
“And I think that we have had a lot of different questions. This is not about any type of conspiracy. It’s just giving people peace of mind of knowing that the election process in Alabama, not only do we feel it’s working correctly, we know it’s working correctly. And here’s one more step, that’s low impact, low cost, that just give people that peace of mind in our state.”
The state lawmaker defended the bill against a filibuster by House Democrats for over two hours last week, but ultimately got it through. The legislation directs each county’s probate judge to conduct an audit of ballots in at least one precinct and at least one countywide or statewide race selected at random after each general election.
Lovvorn also discussed the continuing issues with NIL in college sports.
“Now I think it’s simply a federal issue at this point,” he argued. “We can play around with some state issues, but all it is is moving the goal post around, and one state moves it, then the other state can move it.”
During last year’s session, Lovvorn filed a bill known as the “Competitive Edge NIL Tax Cut Act,” which had a goal of benefiting schools within the state from a competitive standpoint in recruiting against out of state schools.
Lovvorn highlighted the efforts by U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville and others to find solutions on the issue.
“Coach Tuberville has been through the process,” he said. “He was coming out of coaching as this really started to become more and more of effective. But he sees the problems with it, and he understands it and and people like him and coach Pearl and others and from every university and university presence, like you said, have to all speak up, because it’s just really going to destroy the sport and the fun of the college competition.”
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
