Attorneys for Mike Blackmon have filed a brief in the Alabama Supreme Court, appealing a lower court judgment dismissing the contested Conecuh County sheriff’s race.
Blackmon challenged the outcome of the race after Sheriff Randy Brock was declared the winner of the 2022 election.
Retired Democrat Mobile County Circuit Judge Braxton Kittrell was brought in to oversee the circuit court case. After dismissing the case twice, Blackmon’s team took the case to the Alabama Supreme Court.
In the brief, Blackmon's team presented evidence they say proves some votes were cast illegally.
The team challenged two ballots that were not counted by the voting machine but were approved during a recount by the canvassing board. The voters had circled the Democratic party symbols instead of coloring in the ovals on the ballots. Blackmon argued those ballots should not have been counted.
Blackmon's team also presented evidence, including witness testimony, of illegal ballot harvesting. The court found that those absentee ballots in question were "from marginally-educated or illiterate voters," but found the votes were allowed.
"In its final judgment, the circuit court went out of its way, curiously, to say that ‘certain ballot harvesting statutes’ recently enacted by the Legislature were not in effect at the time of the 2022 General Election,” the brief states.
"The undisputed evidence is that large numbers of absentee ballot affidavits were signed by the same witnesses … and ‘donations’ were made to individuals who distributed absentee ballot applications to voters and returned them on behalf of those voters,” the brief continues. “But this Court need not be distracted by the term ‘ballot harvesting,’ whatever it means, because the evidence is uncontroverted that the purported absentee ballots of at least three individuals … were illegally cast and counted for Brock under the absentee voting laws in effect in 2022. The circuit court should have excluded those three votes—enough to cost Brock the election.”
Blackmon’s attorney, Bryan Taylor, said he is asking the Alabama Supreme Court to overturn the decision.
“The circuit court’s judgment should be reversed, and Blackmon declared the winner of this election, because the court relied on illegal votes for Brock, ignored a legal one for Blackmon, and admitted inadmissible evidence that tipped the balance in Brock’s favor,” the briefing states.
Blackmon Appellants Brief 08-01c by Erica Thomas on Scribd
Brock's team has not called witnesses in the case.
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