More than 6,000 Montgomery County voters got the wrong voting information ahead of the election, the Associated Press reported toward the end of Super Tuesday.
James Snipes, chair of the Montgomery County Board of Registrars, told AP that 6,593 county voters received mailers listing them as 7th Congressional District voters rather than the 2nd after the county’s election software made an error.
Registrar Mark Anderson said on Super Tuesday that a mapping issue led to voters in the 2nd Congressional District being told that they were in a different district.
The Southern Poverty Law Center earlier reported that at least 5,604 voters received information that they were in the 7th Congressional District, instead of the newly established, majority-Black 2nd District. Of those 5,604 voters, 4,513 of them are Black, SPLC reported.
Adigale Brooks, a disabled Marine veteran, said she got a postcard from the county misstating her congressional district race. Brooks, who is Black, knew her correct district − the 2nd Congressional District − and voted accordingly. But she also said she got anonymous calls misinforming her about what day to vote, she said.
“A lot of people probably fell for the bait, but I didn’t,” Brooks said.
The misstep on the county’s part made Brooks feel “like something going wrong with the system, and I hate it like that. … But I knew exactly what to do,” Brooks said.
The SPLC became aware of the mapping issue over the weekend. Some Montgomery County voters received postcards with the incorrect congressional district. SPLC co-founder Joe Levin was one of those voters.
The Alabama Reflector reported that the issue impacted about 4,600 Montgomery voters.
All Montgomery residents are in the newly created 2nd Congressional District. “It was just wrong,” Anderson said.
Michael Jones, general counsel for Secretary of State Wes Allen, sent a letter to the Southern Poverty Law Center on Tuesday. The letter clarified that the secretary of state’s office did not send out the mailers with incorrect Congressional districts on them.
Jones accused the SPLC of “potentially illegal” tactics, saying that the SPLC’s move disrupted the primary election.
“Moreover as today’s primary election proceeds, SPLC intentionally persists in furthering its erroneous propaganda,” Jones wrote in his follow-up letter to the organization.
Jones requested that the SPLC retract its release.
A federal court ordered the 2nd Congressional District to be redrawn as a second majority-minority district, over the state’s objections. It’s now expected to lean Democrat.
“This is more than a misstep. Providing erroneous information to thousands of voters on the eve of a hotly contested primary election could very well impact the turnout and the results of the election, for both Republicans and Democrats,” said Bradley Heard, deputy legal director for democracy and voting rights at the SPLC. “There needs to be an immediate audit and public accounting from Secretary Wes Allen’s office on the scope of the problem.”
More: Election UpdatesLive updates: Super Tuesday in Alabama
The Associated Press contributed to this report. Alex Gladden is the Montgomery Advertiser’s public safety reporter. She can be reached at agladden@gannett.com or on Twitter @gladlyalex.
