Mobile County Probate Judge Mark Erwin is looking into what happened Tuesday at the polls for the municipal runoff election.
Dozens of people who voted in the August 26 municipal election returned for the runoff and were met with confusion. After their voter IDs were scanned through the Tenex Electronic Poll Books, their voter status was listed as "inactive."
They were given provisional ballots, which will be counted on Tuesday.
Erwin said he was made aware of the issues early on Tuesday, and although the municipal elections are not under his purview, he still wanted to investigate what happened to ensure it wouldn't happen again. With the May 2026 primary election coming up, Erwin said he needs answers.
"So, I have been working over the last couple days trying to investigate and make some determinations on what may have been the root cause of the issue," Erwin told 1819 News.
Erwin said he is very close to resolving the issues and feels confident that he will get to the bottom of it.
"We'll be giving results of that investigation just as soon as I feel like I can answer the questions that I know the voters have," said Erwin.
While Erwin believes there were two separate issues that combined to create the chaos, he feels that there was more of a procedural issue than a technical glitch. He said the Tenex Electronic Poll Books appeared to be working efficiently. The proper procedure for dealing with an "inactive" voter status is to provide the voter with a registration update form and offer them a regular ballot. That procedure was not followed.
"Right now, I'm confident that there was not a software glitch," Erwin added. "There was a procedural configuration that had to be corrected, but it was not a glitch in the system. It was a procedural configuration that needed to be adjusted to be more in line with our procedures for federal, state and county elections."
However, Mobile City Clerk Lisa Lambert told 1819 News the poll books would not allow the poll workers to process the voter using a voter update form. Instead, it was forcing the issuance of a provisional ballot.
Still, Erwin said the issue with voters having an inactive status is a separate issue.
"There is a voter database issue regarding inactive status, and then there is an election day precinct procedural issue with how to deal with someone who presents an inactive status," he explained.
Erwin said he believes the issue was accidental and unintentional.
The Mobile County Board of Registrars is responsible for updating voting credentials and changing voter status. That office receives voter rolls from the Alabama Secretary of State's Office.
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