The November 5 election is expected to be highly charged. With Alabama's mandate of one-day, one-vote, record turnout is also expected.
Because of Alabama's reputation as a reliably red state that does not allow early or mail-in voting, it is assumed that citizens have little to be concerned about in terms of a fair and honest result. Attorney General Steve Marshall and Secretary of State Wes Allen are also ensuring voters that will be the case.
However, as 1819 News has reported, the influx of Haitians and other migrants into the state has disrupted the makeup of several cities and towns, drained county resources and has the potential to affect the voting process of this election.
In addition to passports and work authorization documents, many migrants can receive social security numbers and driver's licenses. Even though the ALEA-issued licenses have a designation that shows they are foreign nationals, nothing stops these migrants from registering to vote or casting a vote. There has been much speculation on why these migrants have been dropped into the state at this particular time, and the possibility of a disruption to our election looms like a shadow.
In recent phone interviews with several Alabama county registrar offices, staffers affirmed that no active processes were in place to prevent migrant non-citizens from registering to vote.
One staff person in Limestone County said, "If they have a valid driver's license, they'll be able to register to vote."
"If they are a citizen of the United States, is the first question that's asked on the application," she continued. "You know people do [lie], but that's not for us to determine […]."
"We don't ask for anything to prove unless we have reason to believe that they're not a citizen," the staffer added.
Another staffer at the Marshall County Registrar's Office stated that it is rarely checked.
"If they have the last four digits of their Social Security number, and they have a driver's license that is verified, and they have indicated on the application that they are a citizen, and they're at least 18 years old, we normally don't check," the staffer stated.
Colbert County registrar John Lackey also confirmed that the federal government often does not share immigration information with the states, which makes vetting information difficult.
"I really have no way of vetting someone who presents themselves to me as a voter as far as citizenship goes; as long as they sign an affidavit and swear that they are a citizen of the United States, and have no criminal ineligibility, they can register," he told 1819 News.
While Lackey does have the ability to check criminal status with ALEA, the information may not be up to date.
"It's an automatic thing, and ALEA tells me if they've got a criminal record, but it does not give me anything about their citizenship," he advised.
Lackey also pointed out a flaw in terms of the numbers used for the social security verification.
"The ITIN (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number) is the number that a foreign national would use on their income tax as an identification number. Because [the Registrar's office] only uses the last four digits of that number, we would not know the difference between the ITIN number and a Social Security number," Lackey said.
Despite this inability to verify citizenship, a staffer at the Cullman County Registrar's Office wasn't concerned.
"I don't think we have anything to worry about," she said.
"Because when they're issued their driver's license, it has foreign national on it. So, even if they slipped through the cracks and got on the poll books, as soon as the poll workers see their driver's license, they'll be denied. Those people know they can't vote."
In August, Secretary of State Wes Allen made efforts to help clear voter rolls of ineligible and non-citizen voters and had reportedly identified 3,251 non-citizen voters in the state as part of the effort. But he was shut down with a September lawsuit from the Biden Department of Justice. Alabama's AG acted swiftly to counter this suit, but a U.S. District judge ultimately blocked it.
Colbert County's Lackey shed some light on exactly what Allen's program entailed.
"Here's another thing to know. We did not remove them from the voter rolls," Lackey said.
"We put them in an inactive status, which essentially means we've not been able to communicate with them at the address they provided to us, like a piece of mail returned to us in our office, so they went into the inactive status," he continued. "But what Wes Allen's instructions were was to send them a form to allow them to remove themselves or to complete another form to re-identify with. So, they got to make the decision themselves whether they were going to be removed from the voter roll. There was nothing mandatory."
While most eyes are on swing states like Virginia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, the U.S. Department of Justice has quietly chosen to appoint "district election officers" for Southern, middle, and Northern Alabama. These officers will be tasked with fielding Election Day complaints of voting rights concerns, investigating threats of violence against election officials or staff, and addressing election fraud.
These officers are acting under the power of the federal government, whose past behavior indicates that the potential for non-citizens voting in the 2024 election is an issue they do not want to address. So, should these non-citizen migrants currently in Alabama break the law and vote on Tuesday, what is to stop these district election officers from not only allowing them to but declaring the votes as valid to prevent any whispers of voter disenfranchisement or in the name of thwarting election fraud?
On Wednesday, the State of Virginia received a major victory from the U.S. Supreme Court, which issued an emergency stay allowing them to remove non-citizen voters from their rolls. Attorney General Marshall joined several other states in supporting Virginia's emergency appeal, but as 1819 News reported, it is still unclear whether this decision will affect Alabama's efforts to do the same.
With less than a week until Election Day, vigilance on the part of poll workers, county election officials, and concerned citizens may be the only reliable stay against possible election interference and fraud.
Editor's Note: An earlier version of this piece misattributed a comment from a Limestone County Board of Registrars staffer. The reporter's question was incorporated in the remarks from the Limestone County Board of Registrar staffer. We regret this error.
Jennifer Oliver O'Connell, As the Girl Turns, is an investigative journalist, author, opinion analyst, and contributor to 1819 News, Redstate, and other publications. Jennifer writes on Politics and Pop Culture, with occasional detours into Reinvention, Yoga, and Food. You can read more about Jennifer's world at her As the Girl Turns website. You can also follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Telegram.
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