Questions Linger as Election Audit Bill Goes to Senate

The Alabama Post-Election Audit Act (HB30) received a favorable report from the Alabama Senate Finance and Taxation General Fund Committee yesterday on a 9-5 vote, as ALPolitics.com reported yesterday. However, questions continue to dog the bill as it goes to the Senate for consideration.

Immediately after yesterday’s meeting, State Representative Debbie Wood (R-Valley) said, “Today a public hearing was held on the Post Election Audit Bill. I appreciate the individuals that offered comments in the Committee. The bill was given a favorable report and now we are excited about moving this bill to the Senate floor.”

Huntsville’s Clay Parikh, a nationally-recognized expert in election security, described his feeling over the favorable report as “frustrated.” As he previously has said to ALPolitics.com, “It’s not statistically significant. It’s not a real audit. And even if they did find something, what will they do? There’s no provision to further investigate, or any penalty. It’s like they’re just passing something to say they passed something. It’s a waste.”

The question of statistical significance of the proposed audits was raised during yesterday’s hearing. Specifically, how many races and ballots would have to be audited for an audit to be statistically significant and relevant?

Rep. Wood said that could not give an answer to that, but the initial version of her bill was much broader and more costly. However, when the cost came to be considered she felt the responsibility to spend the taxpayer’s dollars wisely, and that was a consideration. “I do think that it’s extremely important that we start,” she said. “If we uncover something, then we’ll feel much better about spending more money to do a wider audit than what we have planned in this bill.”

Another question came after Angela Shepherd testified that three years ago she had taken an absentee ballot to a Kinko's copy center, made eight copies, trimmed them with scissors to fit the machine and ran them through a state tabulator during the public testing of the machines. All eight fake copies were accepted as valid ballots. Some members of the Committee seemed to believe this would not be an issue in a real election, but Ms. Shepherd said that a person in Perry County had done something similar—running the same ballot through the machine multiple times—and had been arrested for it.

State Senator Sam Givan (R-7) commented that he could not point to a single state election or anything that he followed in his area that “looks wrong.” He went on to say about these elections, “every one of them has gone the way I thought it was going to go. And so, I just don’t feel like, this is nibbling around the edges, and so I just can’t support this bill.” 

A question was raised about the cost of the audit, with there apparently being some confusion as to whether the fiscal note of $35,000 applied to the entire cost of the audit or to each county. Rep. Wood stated that was the cost for the entire audit.

When asked about an “opt-in” option for counties by Sen. Robert Stewart (D-23), Rep. Wood said “I want all 67 counties to conduct post-election audits. We only had the audits previously in three of our counties. I think all should have to have the audits.”

Sen. Greg Albritton (R-22), who chairs the Committee, introduced an amendment to the bill that “the post-election audit shall be commenced no earlier than 31 days following the statewide general election or the expiration of the time period for filing an election contest, whichever is less, and shall be completed within 30 days of commencement.“ This amendment was also passed favorably by the Committee.

The bill was read for the second time on Thursday, April 3 and placed on the Senate’s calendar.

ALPolitics.com reached out to several other individuals for comments, but none had responded as of press time.