Some Voters Required to Verify Information at the Polls
An attempt to update the state’s voter rolls left some Alabama voters confused and angry at the polls in Tuesday’s US Senate primary. That was the race to fill the seat formerly held by Jeff Sessions.
Amy Wright has been voting in the same polling for the last 18 years. On Tuesday, she walked up to the poll worker at the Homewood public library, who looked up her name. “And she looked me up and she said, ‘You’re not on here.’ And I said, what?”
Turned out Wright and her husband had been moved to the inactive voter rolls. Wright had to fill out some paperwork before she was allowed to vote. “It’s a verification form,” she says. “You have to write down your name, address, previous address, driver’s license number. And a poll worker had to sign off on it. Wright says she’s voted in every election for years. And what happened Tuesday seemed suspicious. “You know, somebody could blame it on a computer glitch or whatever. But there is absolutely no reason my name would not have been on that list.”
Wright wasn’t the only one who was bumped to the inactive voter rolls. The same thing happened to Congressman Mo Brooks, who was a candidate in the Senate primary. Also, state Rep. Patricia Todd, and a federal judge in Montgomery.
Amy Wright says she has “absolutely zero” faith in Alabama’s voting system.
Merrill says from January to March, his office mailed every registered Alabama voter a postcard requesting information verification. He says that’s required by the National Voter Registration Act. “This is the first time in the history of the state that Alabama’s been fully compliant with the law,” he says.
He says problems stemmed from verification notices his office sent bouncing back to the post office. They’d end up at county election offices, and residents would be knocked off the active voter rolls. Merrill says his office has no plans to look into this any further, and that no one was denied the right to vote. It’s unclear how many of Alabama’s 3.3 million registered voters were affected. Turnout in Tuesday’s primary was just under 18 percent.
Pentagon shifts toward maintaining ties to Scouting
Months after NPR reported on the Pentagon's efforts to sever ties with Scouting America, efforts to maintain the partnership have new momentum
Why farmers in California are backing a giant solar farm
Many farmers have had to fallow land as a state law comes into effect limiting their access to water. There's now a push to develop some of that land… into solar farms.
Every business wants your review. What’s with the feedback frenzy?
Customers want to read reviews and businesses need reviews to attract customers. But the constant demand for reviews could be creating a feedback backlash, experts say.
‘Get back to integrity’: Oklahoma’s Kevin Stitt on Republicans after Trump
NPR's Steve Inskeep asks Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt about his spat with President Trump, immigration and the future of the Republican Party.
Civil rights leaders say the racial progress Jesse Jackson fought for is under threat
Activists say racial progress won by the Rev. Jesse Jackson is under threat, as a new generation of leaders works to preserve hard-fought civil rights gains.
Tariffs cost American shoppers. They’re unlikely to get that money back
After the Supreme Court declared the emergency tariffs illegal, the refund process will be messy and will go to businesses first.
