When the final votes were tallied on May 24, Republican House District 2 hopeful Kimberly Butler narrowly missed a runoff by five votes.
Butler finished third out of four district candidates, including Limestone and Lauderdale Counties, with 3,083 votes to her opponents Jason Black's 3,088 votes and former Limestone County Commissioner Ben Harrison's 3,275 votes. After eligible provisional ballots were included, Black's advantage over Butler grew to 14 votes.
However, according to Butler, some House District 2 voters in Lauderdale County were given a ballot with the wrong candidates and therefore did not have an opportunity to vote for Butler, who took to Huntsville radio WVNN's "Rightside Radio" on Monday to offer her version of what happened.
"Immediately as soon as the election was over, I started getting some feedback from people who felt they had gotten the wrong ballot," Butler said. "At force, we kind of ignored it, but when it kept coming and kept coming after the provisionals were counted, we had 24 hours to file a contest. Because I had gotten so much hearsay, basically, evidence, we decided to file the contest. And after the contest was filed, we requested the information from the Secretary of State's office.
"We know every person who voted in House Districts 1 and 2. We know where they live. We don't know how they voted. But we do know what ballot they received. We laid this over the map and started calculating to see who actually received the wrong ballot. Because it is an open case, we're not going to reveal the exact numbers. But I can tell you it is more than enough to overturn the actual election results."
Butler told host Phil Williams she had signed affidavits from voters stating that given the opportunity to vote in the correct House District primary, they would have voted for Butler, which she claimed would have been enough votes to give her the victory.
According to Butler, a court hearing is scheduled for Saturday, and she claimed if she won her case, the Alabama Republican Party would hold another runoff between her and the first-place winner.
Bryan Taylor, an attorney and former state senator representing some affected voters, acknowledged the problem and its cause.
"These voters actually live in House District 2, according to the official maps of the Permanent Legislative Committee on Reapportionment," Taylor said. "The legislature redrew district lines as constitutionally required after the last census. But somehow, the update never made it into the voter registration database."
The scenario is similar to a misappropriated ballot situation in Etowah County, in which some voters were also given ballots that did not correlate with the State House districts they were drawn into by the Alabama Legislature.
To connect with the author of this story, or to comment, email jeff.poor@1819News.com.
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