Wes Allen Facing Serious Residency Questions After Public Records Revealed His Campaign Paid for Challenge to Opponent

Statement from Morgan County Republican Party Chairman Julie Clausen, representing more than two dozen Republican leaders across Alabama

Recent media reports revealed that Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen’s campaign paid for the legal challenge filed against his opponent, John Wahl.

“As a leader in the Republican Party, I am very concerned about Wes Allen secretly passing $20,000 under the table to pay for a case to get his opponent disqualified. That is an abuse of the party’s ballot challenge process and raises a lot of ethical questions for many party members,” said Morgan County GOP Chairman Julie Clausen.

Following those reports, members of the Alabama Republican Party are calling on Allen to address serious questions regarding his own compliance with Alabama’s residency requirements.

The case Wes Allen paid to have filed challenging John Wahl’s eligibility was based on residency requirements outlined in Section 117 of the Alabama Constitution. However, Allen himself appears to be ignoring a separate constitutional residency requirement that applies directly to his own office.

Section 118 of the Alabama Constitution clearly states that the Secretary of State must “reside at the state capital during the time they continue in office.” Alabama’s state capital is Montgomery.

Yet publicly available records raise significant questions about whether Secretary Allen is meeting that requirement. According to public property tax records, Allen maintains a homestead exemption on a residence in Pike County, not Montgomery. Additionally, voter registration records show Allen is registered to vote at a Pike County address, rather than in Montgomery, where the Constitution requires him to reside while serving in office.

Clausen said the situation raises troubling questions that need to be answered.

“Does Secretary Allen actually maintain a residence in Montgomery as required by the Alabama Constitution? And if he claims to have some form of residence there, how can he justify using residency arguments to try to disqualify John Wahl while facing similar questions himself? If Wes Allen believes residency requirements are important enough to spend $20,000 trying to remove a political opponent from the ballot, then those same standards must apply to him,” Clausen said.

The contrast between the two situations is difficult to ignore according to Clausen and she highlighted the fact that Allen’s situation actually seems more difficult to explain.

John Wahl has consistently maintained that he has held a residence in Alabama for more than seven years, as required by the Constitution for candidates running for Lieutenant Governor. While Wahl has acknowledged having a second residence in Tennessee, voting records show he has always voted in Alabama, where he is required to have a residence, not Tennessee.

By contrast, public records surrounding Secretary Allen raise a more serious question. Those records show that Allen is not just registered to vote in Pike County, but that he has been consistently voting in Pike County while the Alabama Constitution requires him to reside in Montgomery during his time in office.

 “Let’s be clear: using the same legal arguments that Secretary Allen paid an attorney to make against John Wahl, he has either been illegally serving as Secretary of State by failing to meet the residency requirement, or he has been committing voter fraud in Pike County. There’s no way to get around that fact.”

Chairman Clausen believes that either way, Alabama voters deserve answers.

“Secretary Allen must immediately clarify his residency status and explain how it complies with the requirements set forth in Section 118 of the Alabama Constitution. Alabama voters deserve to know whether the person responsible for overseeing our elections is following the laws.”

Clausen also emphasized that the issue is about fairness and accountability.

“This situation exposes a troubling double standard. You cannot have one set of rules for your political opponents and another set of rules for yourself. At a minimum, Wes Allen owes John Wahl and the people of Alabama an apology.”