State Auditor and Republican Secretary of State candidate Jim Zeigler proposed a plan on Wednesday to have a “Watchman Program” to better prevent election irregularities. Zeigler released his proposal at a speech to the Republican Women of Pike County in Troy.
“Over the next eight years, the job of Alabama’s Secretary of State will be vital,” Zeigler said. “Alabama needs a proven watchman to be our Secretary of State. As your State Auditor, I served as your watchman against government waste, mismanagement and corruption.”
Zeigler said that the position of poll-watcher is already established under Alabama’s election law but that it is “under-utilized – almost ignored“.
“This is different from the paid poll workers who run the polling place,” Zeigler said. “Poll watchers are volunteers...granted strong abilities to spot irregularities, to intervene, and to report problems. Properly trained poll watchers can be an added preventive against election fraud.”
Zeigler said that he will take two steps to better use the poll watcher position:
“One, I will conduct an information and recruitment campaign to the public, to organizations, to candidates, and to the faith community,” Zeigler said. “Second, I will set up free training sessions for the poll watchers. We will have in-person training and on-line training.
“Trained and vigilant poll watchers will have a chilling effect on those who would manipulate the polling places,” Zeigler predicted. “With election misconduct, it is far better to prevent it than to discover it after the fact. The Watchman Program will increase and improve that prevention at very little cost to the public.”
Zeigler said that there are several threats to our election integrity, including:
attempts to allow non-citizens to vote.
efforts to change ‘election day’ to ‘election week’ or ‘election month'.
assaults against our requirement for voter ID.
ballot harvesting.
same-day voter registration.
drop-off drive-by ballot boxes.
voting by mail.
“A vote for Jim Zeigler is a vote against all these schemes to manipulate our elections,” Zeigler stated. “Election integrity may be the most important single issue. The reason is this: If we lose our ability to elect or defeat officials, then all other issues will have lost accountability to the people. We would have government of the manipulators, by the manipulators and for the manipulators. A vote for Jim Zeigler is a vote against election by manipulation.”
Wes Allen, Christian Horn, Ed Packard and Jim Zeigler are all running in the Republican primary for Alabama Secretary of State in the 2022 Alabama Republican Primary on May 24.
Incumbent Secretary of State John H. Merrill (R) is term-limited from running for re-election.
