A number of Alabama legislators say they want to improve election integrity this upcoming session, with three bills in particular designed to ban non-paper electronic voting machines and ban ballot harvesting.
Sponsored by State Sen. Clyde Chambliss, R-Prattville, Senate Bills 9 and 10 would mandate the use of paper ballots and ban the use of electronic voting machines with the ability to connect to the internet, respectively.
The state of Alabama has long used paper ballots in its elections, however, the practice is a matter of policy rather than law. Chambliss told Alabama Daily News that his two bills would merely codify existing election procedure policies into law.
“I was on the committee that approves voting machines for the state, and as I was asking questions about the machines and their ability to connect to the internet, it became apparent to me that those were a matter of policy and not law,” Chambliss said.
“In the future those could be changed, so I wanted to take a proactive approach to try to address that before it becomes an issue.”
Chambliss said the response to his bills among his colleagues has been “overwhelmingly positive,” and that they would allow those who would attempt to interfere with voting machines to be criminally charged.
“I will say an example, say somebody did add a modem or Bluetooth (device) to one of our voting machines – which are just computers – and then tried to do something nefarious with an election,” Chambliss said. “There’s nothing that we could do because that’s not illegal, so we want to make it illegal.”
State Rep. Mark Shirey, R-Mobile, who sits on the House Constitution, Campaigns and Elections Committee, told ADN that he was in full support of the two bills after both reading them and speaking with the office of Secretary of State Wes Allen.
“I don’t think it’s a very controversial bill, all we’re doing is codifying what we already do in policy (into law),” Shirey said. “I’m going to look at the full, last version of the bill, and if it’s the same as what I’ve just read, yes, I’m absolutely in support of it.”
Another supporter of the bills was State Rep. Jamie Kiel, R-Russellville, who sits on the House State Government Committee.
“The paper ballot is the safest means of voting, and as far as the other bill goes, there’s really no reason for the internet to be hooked up to our voting machines,” Kiel told ADN. “Election integrity is important, we need to make sure that it’s done in an efficient and safe manner and that protects the intentions of our voters.”
Kiel said in addition to supporting Chambliss’ bills, he had his own bill he was working on that would add additional safeguards to prevent ballot harvesting, a process where absentee or mail-in ballots are collected by someone other than the voter themselves.
Alabama is currently the only state to outright ban the practice of ballot harvesting. Kiel said his bill – which has not yet been filed – would be similar to a bill introduced in 2022 by then-State House Rep. Wes Allen, which would have prohibited anyone from paying someone else to assist in completing absentee ballots.
That bill did not get House approval last year and Kiel said he intends to reintroduce his own version during this upcoming session.
“Of course in (Allen’s) new position as secretary of state, he is very active in making sure our voting procedures and laws protect our process in that we don’t wind up in a situation like other states have where their voting process has been called into question. So I worked very closely with the secretary of state on this, and he is very supportive of the measure.”
The state legislature is set to convene on Mar. 7, where Chambliss’ two bills will have their first reading. Kiel’s bill has not yet been filed.