Merrill says that Alabama elections are the premier election system in the country

Former Secretary of State John Merrill (R) recently spoke on the Brandon and Christopher Show podcast hosted by Alabama Gazette lead reporter and content manger Brandon Moseley and Alabama Political Contributor Publisher Christopher Peeks. Merrill touted his record as Secretary of State and his work making Alabama elections more secure.

"When I left office, we were recognized by conservative women for good government, by the Heritage Foundation, and by the University of Southern California in Los Angeles as the premier election system in the United States of America," said Secretary Merrill. "Subsequently, we've dropped down at least one, maybe two places, but for the first time in the history of the state we were recognized as the most secure and the most effective and the most efficient reporting system for elections in the United States of America."

Alabama election results are usually in by 10:00 p.m. on election night – much faster than what they used to be and faster than some other states even today.

"Well, and one of the things that we did, Brandon, and I know you're aware of this, but we started election night reporting in real time in 2016, where all of our probate judges, our chief election officials from each one of the 68 jurisdictions in the 67 counties actually report the returns as they come in, and then they can update that through the electronic system," said Secretary Merrill. "Of course, all that's unofficial, but it keeps people informed, and what it also does is it allows people to see in real time as the numbers change throughout the evening as reports come in from all 67 counties."

Merrill was asked about the security of allowing absentee ballots.

"It depends on how it is done," Secretary Merrill answered. "Alabama's is the most secure in the nation. We require that an individual that actually wants to vote by mail through the absentee process has to make application to receive a ballot, and so they have to fill out the application and send it into or do it in person to the absentee election manager, which in most jurisdictions is the circuit clerk. When that's done, they are provided with a ballot when that ballot is available."

"If they do it in person, most of the time the ballot It's already available," Merrill continued. "Then they vote on their ballot. They secure their ballot in the secrecy envelope. It's sealed. Then it's placed in the return envelope and either mailed by that individual or hand delivered by that individual to the absentee election manager. Then that is not opened until election day, but that's one of the most secure methods in the United States of America today."

Merrill was asked why it takes weeks to get the election results in California.

"Part of that is because of their mail-in voting and because of the reporting system that they have in place and that's one of the reasons why people use us as a model and they don't use California as a model when it comes to understanding what has happened with the election and what the results actually are that evening," said Merrill. "You know, I appreciate you saying that by the 10 o'clock news time people in our state know unofficially what the results are because the probate judges in the 68 jurisdictions have done such a good job in getting that information from their precincts, 1,980 precincts when I was the or 1,980 polling sites when I was the Secretary of State and then having those returned to the county seat and then uploaded and then sent to Montgomery for us to make available through that central mechanism."

Some have suggested that voting machine tabulators can be hacked. Unlike certain other states, Alabama vote tabulator machines do not have modems where they can connect to the internet.

"That is correct, Brandon. As a matter of fact, we started replacing our voting tabulators, the machine where you insert your ballot, where those votes are counted and recorded," said Merrill. "And we started doing that in the 2016 cycle. And before we left office, all the voting machines had been replaced in each one of the 1,980 polling sites in the state of Alabama. They're not connected to the internet, and they have not been connected to the internet, and when we had them designed, we had them designed without modem capability, so you could not transfer information electronically from that location to a central reporting location by the use of that equipment at all."

"And the main reason that I wanted to do that at that time, and this is before any of those concerns were introduced in the 2020 election, is because I didn't want someone in Coosada or Wedowee or Eclectic or Satsuma asking me: Are our pieces of equipment vulnerable? Are they able to be infiltrated? Are they able to be impacted in a negative way and can results be changed because they could not be changed? - There is no capability for that to occur."

Some persons have questioned the accuracy of the results in the 2022 Republican primary.

"Not only are they accurate results, they were unchallenged," said Merrill. "You know, if an individual has a concern about the legitimacy of an election, brand, there is a way to challenge that. Clearly stated in the Code of Alabama, you just need to follow the law and you need to appeal to the local probate judge in the jurisdiction where you want that challenged. Then it goes through the court proceedings where the ballots are actually unsealed and then they can be checked again and then you can determine if the results were the same."

Merrill was asked if hand counting of the ballots would add a human element of inaccurary to the election process.

"the one thing that I know is that if you want to increase the possibility for voter fraud to occur, you need to engage in hand counting of ballots," said Merrill. "The one place that I have seen hand counting of ballots occur is when I was an international election observer in Russia back in September of 2016. And to watch how they did it and how they counted it by hand - and how they separated the ballots by hand - is ripe for fraud."

Merrill is a likely candidate for Lieutenant Governor in 2016.

The Republican Primary is scheduled for May 2026.