FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
Secretary of State Wes Allen - Jeff Poor Show - Tuesday 7-09-24
[music] And we'll go back to the Jeff Moore Show and have a talk. What '06, five are still at Hittinger, Alabama, the potato festival. They're doing every 4th of July. Got some good guests coming by, but do you want to get snell here is Secretary of State Wuss Allen, Secretary, good morning, how are you? Morning, Jeff. Good to see ya. You too. Well, last time I saw you, you were in Mississippi. You're right. You're right. You're catching fly balls, but... I still got a strawberry on my knee from that slide in the third base. Ooh. It was a great slide, right, Jeff? I took my three-year-old there, but... It's hot. It was hot. It was like it's June 22nd. It was the hottest day of the year out. Yeah. I'm glad you brought your son out with it. 10 in the morning. Yeah. We stayed for the whole thing. No, we went all the extra innings and all that. I'll tell you. Yeah. We pulled it out. And then as soon as he gets in the car, he's out the whole way home. Back to Mobile. There you go. There you go. It was fun and glad you could make it over. It was for good calls and appreciate leaders. Start Hagen and Garland and Senator Gudgeon and all those guys that put the thing together and, of course, the leaders of Mississippi. Yeah. Well, here we are, 500 miles away from there or so. Yeah. Well, that's supposed to be going on. I mean, election season. Yep. And, you know, typically in Alabama politics, it's kind of a subdued time, but this is what's going on nationally, and we're about to go vote here in November, and you've dealt with this controversy, I guess, where you talk about the way some of these federal agencies are sending out voter applications, and you've been on top of that, but you feel like you've got to handle all things right now? Yeah. So November 5th is quickly approaching. I mean, it's going to be here fast, and like you just alluded to, the federal agency sending out the voter registration forms to anybody that comes in contact with them, no matter if they get the benefits or not. And so that's a bad problem, but we have worked very closely with our probate judges, their clerks, sheriffs, and their boards of registrars really closely because, you know, voter file maintenance is the foundation, the bedrock of election integrity. And if you can't get your voter file maintenance right, if you can't get that right, it can get off in a ditch quick. And so we have been working those really hard. We've exchanged data files with Tennessee, Georgia, and Mississippi so far. Once we exited the electronic registration information center and replaced it with an Alabama based solution, and so we have been working extremely close with boards of registrars, putting out guidance, doing our dead level best to take care of voter file maintenance, because it's important. American citizens are the only individuals that need to be voting in our elections, plain and simple. And so we are, every day with our staff, when we come into work, we know the assignment, and we understand it, I've heard it from people up and down the state when I go speak. Election integrity is a top priority, and it's a top priority for me. Yeah, I agree with that. Well, the legislature says some things that kind of help out about that. Oh, yeah. No doubt. I want to thank Speaker Ledbetter and Majority Leader Livingston, who hosted this event this morning for their help, shepherding through strong legislation to fortify elections. Number one, SB1, and with ballot harvesting, and particularly the application portion of the absentee process, and Jeff, I just want to say this to all your listeners, absentee voting is important, and we've got to take care of it because a lot of people use it. But we don't need these people from out of state, even from in state that want to manipulate the process of our absentee voting, and that means making money off the process and pre-filling these applications and doing those things that will decrease the confidence of our elections. And we want to make sure people have confidence. We protect those that are disabled with this bill. We put the federal language in the state, in the bill, in SB1, that protects. If you're disabled, you can choose anybody that you want from start to finish to help you with the process of absentee voting. If you're overseas and military, you're excluded from the bill. But let me be clear, any voter can choose any person to help them with their application. They just can't be paid for. The person assisting cannot be paid. And so we put felony provisions, not just misdemeanors, felony provisions, to be strong deterrence to anybody that wants to traffic these ballot applications and manipulate the process. Well, let's talk about absentee ballot fraud over the years in Alabama, because it's like you heard these media types. Well, there's no evidence that there's ever been any absentee ballot problems here, but I can think of like Gordon, Alabama, right now, Alabama, I can think of a bunch of instances in my head. Sure. Where does that where does that mythology come from? Even our opponents, Democratic Senator in the state Senate, admitted in an open hearing that when you have fraud in the elections process, it's in the orbit, basically is what she said of the absentee process. So we know it. We've seen it. And if you go back, the Heritage Foundation has a list of all the states that have convictions. If you look at Alabama, it's basically all absentee voter fraud. And of course, when our opponents were opposing this bill, they're like, well, point us to where it's happening. And well, we don't have a law that is a strong deterrent with penalties. That's what we're trying to do now to put into place with SB1, is to make sure we've got strong deterrent, felony provisions, lay it out, plain and simple, of what can and cannot be done. Well, the other thing that occurs to me on this secretary is that it's going on. And some of these counties, they just don't prosecute it because that's just the way they do things there. And, you know, we're going to operate on our own terms. So you have the prosecutors or you have law enforcement there, it's just like the gambling issue. They choose not to enforce that law and it's a misdemeanor or whatever anyway. So they'll just roll the dice and take the chance. So do you feel like this provision now is going to be something that's going to be enforceable in these parts of the state where they don't care? Absolutely. Absolutely. I do. You know, if I'm not mistaken, SB1 puts felony, you know, it is the first of its kind for felony. The felony thing is a part of it. And I think it really is going to raise the intent of the DA's that we'll take a look at it. There's some kind of complaint. And if we get complaints, which we have a complaint page on the website, if anybody, any of your listeners, if they make a complaint, we don't have them, you know, we can't investigate, we can't prosecute, but we can pass it along to the AG and then the DA's and then the ethics commission. And that's what we do. And so we're staying on top of it. You know, we stay in close contact with the DA. I was down at the DA Association not long ago. And, you know, so it's, you know, it's good to have relationships and to work really closely together. Well, tell me if you see something like this. Now, it ended me maybe 10 years ago, eight years ago, something like that. It was Wilcox County and Perry County and the Democratic primary, I think a probate judge race or something, and you just had just like abnormally high absentee ballot number, like 38, 40% of the votes cast were absentee ballots, where it's like normally two, three percent or something, right? Right. But you see something like that. What do you do? Yeah. So we saw that recently in a few counties where you had abnormally high absentee voting, 21% in one county, 16% in one county, 18% in another county, and the statewide average was 2.9% give or take a few points. So that's where SB1 is really going to have effect, in my opinion, and it's in effect right now. Well, tell me, let's play this out. Do you see a number like that? What do you do? Well, first of all, we've got to have a complaint. Okay. We've got to receive that to the office, and then we'll, we will pass that along to the correct authorities once we vet that. And then we'll push it out and say. But do you run into the same problem where it's a local prosecutor is like, yeah, that's what we do here. And they just shrug it off. I mean, like, well, you had to get the AG involved. Well, both, both. And you just push and push and say, hey, we need to, we need you to look into it. This is something that I think is, it needs to be top priority. It's a top priority for us. So we're going to push. Joined by Secretary of State West Allen here for just a few more minutes, but you feel good. I've been in office a two years and some change, a year and a half, yeah, a year and a half. A year and some change. It felt like two years from the election a couple of years ago, right. Right. Because we were sitting here two years ago, right? Right. Right. Right. But you feel good about how things you've gotten to do on that. Secretary of State, there's a lot of other things besides elections, but just all elections, do you feel like you're in a good place? We are. We're in a very good place. We have been working extremely hard when I got, you know, went through and took my oath. That first year, you know, seven, eight months, we just kind of locked down and got our arms rolled our sleeves up and got our arms around everything. I wanted to learn everything I could. And so that's really important. The staff we have is top notch. I mean, they're first round draft picks and we all think alike. We all lock arms in the same way and we, and we, we march lock step with each other about election integrity and other things that we take care of in the office. So that's really, really important. And the more I travel around this state, and I hear from people, Jeff, about election integrity, you know, when I pull up to the state capital, it's not, it's not lost on me, the gravity of the situation and what we've got to do and what we've got to protect in the people of this state, the five million people that call Alabama home and the values and principles, the conservative principles that we've got to protect and look over. And I just want to make sure that I represent Alabama with class and integrity and never disgrace the office. And I tell people, when I walk into a meeting of the other secretaries of state from around the country in Washington, D.C., it's not West walking into the room. It's Alabama walking into the room and I want to represent them in a way that they can be proud of and know that I am fighting for our conservative values and principles that made Alabama great and makes Alabama great. And so we're extremely proud to be in this position and it's something that I will never take for granted. And, you know, we'll kind of wind it down on this after 2020, and we saw what kind of went on nationally, the election integrity issue really hit the radar for a lot of people. You know, people just don't trust a process. You know, what I always say is Alabama is not that, okay? It's not Michigan, Detroit, it's not any of these other places. But, you know, there's still a little, you know, it could happen there, it could happen here. And that's really kind of changed the role of your job, hasn't it? Yeah, there's a lot of eyeballs, excuse me, there's a lot of eyeballs on these offices, and we realize that and that's why we don't arise and cross our T's. We follow the law, we follow the Constitution, what has been laid out in front of us. And Alabama does it right. We do it right. We're number two on heritage's, you know, strength of elections, election integrity. And so we take that, we think moved it up from six to number two since I've been in office. And so we take pride in that. And, you know, paper ballots, we passed a law to make sure we always have paper ballots. Our tabulators can never be connected to the internet per state law. You know, SB1 issue, you know, banning ranked choice voting, we can never do ranked choice. That's why we passed a lot of prohibited. You know, these other things are so important to fortify the elections. And on a county by county basis, is it uniform? I know this was like it was a discussion, like you would vote one way in one place and another. It was another method, but are they all kind of the same now? Yes. So it is, and there's, you know, the discussion was about ranked choice voting. Well, listen, that causes chaos and confusion. It takes time longer than we do now to tabulate votes. We want to make sure we never introduce that type of voting in Alabama. And you know, it results in spold ballots. It makes winners out of losers, and we just don't, I just believe in one person, one vote. And if you have to have a runoff, it focuses the electorate on who the two candidates are to represent them in the, you know, in the general election. I think that's important. We wanted to protect that. The probate judges, you know, they've been fantastic to work with. They used to be one. So I can kind of talk their language when they have a question, but yeah, it's uniform across the board. They have laws to follow and, you know, they do a good job. Well, and talk about that relationship because coming in as a probate judge and then a law maker and now secretary, but the probate judge role and the top election official in the county and how that election official really deals with the state. Yeah. So, you know, on the ground, those probate judges are administering the election laws. They are appointing poll workers. They are training poll workers. They are putting the ballot together. They are proofing those ballots, printing those ballots, certifying the tabulators to make sure they're ready to go. They are working alongside the circuit clerk who is the absentee election manager. They're working alongside the sheriff who handles the chain of custody for the ballots when they take them out and then also when they get delivered back to the courthouse and they're working with, they're very closely with the boards of registrars. And what the secretary's role is, is to help provide guidance and any kind of other resources that they may need or any kind of stumps in the road that they may run into. You know, we have excellent legal counsel, Mike Jones is in our office. Right. Right. And one of the most brilliant attorneys in Montgomery, in my opinion, Meredith Blackburn as well, works in our office, she's fantastic. So we help with guidance, what state law says and then any other thing they may need to be successful. Well, last question, in the last cycle, the after reapportionment and some of those precincts not being quite right and some of the maps not really being right, I know it's a function of like the board of electors or the registrars, the auditor and the activator and the governor get, you know, their persons. But do you feel like that problem's been resolved? We've made a lot of headway introducing the GIS software system to these counties that didn't have any kind of computer program when they lay out their maps, their county commission maps, their state house maps, their state senate maps, their school board maps. You know, using a pencil and a magnifying glass to get people, just not working, okay? So we made available through have a money that you help America vote again, act federal money to provide computer software. And we've got 34 counties now on board using that program. And it is pinpoint accurate for Jeff Moore's house, where you live, it is pinpoint accurate for where I live. I mean, it is going to get people in the right district and the right precinct because we can't have anybody show up on election day and receive the wrong ballot. That's just uncalled for and we're not going to have it and the counties have been good to work with to get this institute. All right, well, Secretary, thanks for stopping by, safe travels, thanks for making time for us, Mr. Secretary. We'll be right back. [MUSIC]