Former Republican gubernatorial candidate Lindy Blanchard and Alabama State Rep. Tommy Hanes, R-Scottsboro, filed a lawsuit against six state officials on May 24 — days before the 2022 Alabama primary.
Blanchard served as U.S. ambassador to Slovenia in the administration of former President Donald Trump.
According to WHNT, the lawsuit, filed by Blanchard and Hanes on May 19, seeks to ban the use of electronic voting machines in the upcoming general election on Nov. 8.
Specifically, the lawsuit calls for paper ballots and manual counts in the upcoming general election and condemns the electronic voting methods as "unsecure and fatally compromised." Further allegations state that such voting machines, manufactured by Election Systems & Software, are "wrongly certified" and "can be connected to the internet," a claim that the Alabama Secretary of State's office has confirmed as not the case.
"Alabama's elections are secure and transparent," the Alabama Secretary of State's office wrote in the August 2021 publication "Alabama Election Access vs. Election Security." "Our voting machines are not connected to any network, including cellular networks. Our voting machines do not have wireless chips, or any other piece of hardware to communicate or be communicated with. Our voting machines do not possess modem technology and cannot communicate or be communicated with by other devices."
The lawsuit referenced and misquoted an article from The Guardian. The original article stated: "... Russian agents probed voting systems in all 50 states, and successfully breached the voter registration systems of Arizona and Illinois in 2016." But in the lawsuit, "Arizona" is replaced with "Alabama."
The stipulations the lawsuit lists for a paper ballot election would start with ballots being sealed in a box until they reach their designated counting location. Upon delivery, the ballot boxes would be unsealed one at a time with party representatives in attendance. From there, ballots would be counted in batches of 100, then returned to the box with a tally sheet for each batch. The box would then be re-sealed and taken to a tally center where three independent counters would count the ballots one by one. Additionally, two further independent counters would compare the two results for accuracy. Finally, the lawsuit calls for the tally center counting to be live-streamed and archived for the public record.
On Sunday, State Rep. Wes Allen, R-Troy, who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, told WHNT: "Alabama has the most secure elections in the nation, and I have worked hard throughout my career ensuring that our elections remain safe and secure. I sponsored and passed legislation that permanently banned curbside voting in Alabama, and I also passed the 'Zuckerbucks' bill that prohibits any outside group or individual from buying our election machines or supplies or from paying election officials or their staff members. I have worked tirelessly to keep our elections secure for every American citizen that is a legally registered voter in Alabama, and I will continue to do so."
A list of defendants, who are members of Alabama's Electronic Voting Committee, include:
- State Rep. Wes Allen, R-Troy
- Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill
- Alabama Supervisor of Voter Registration Jeff Elrod
- Chief Deputy Attorney General Clay Crenshaw
- State Sen. Will Barfoot, R-Montgomery
- Lee County Probate Judge Bill English
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