Reforming election administration in Alabama
By Adam Bourne
Now that a busy election season has ended, I offer some thoughts on reforming our state's election system.
Under current law, the state's top election administrators are partisan elected or appointed officeholders. The secretary of state serves as the "chief elections official," while popularly elected probate judges, circuit clerks and sheriffs handle elections in the counties. Voter registrars are appointed by three statewide officials, the governor, the agriculture commissioner and the state auditor.
Alabama is fortunate to have had relatively clean elections in recent years, in large part due to outstanding probate judges and registrars. However, the potential for abuse by partisan election officials is clear. Further, in election administration, perception matters. For citizens to trust the political process, they must know that their election officials are unbiased.
To understand this, we need only look to the 2006 controversy involving the court-ordered removal of Alabama's voter registration database from the authority of the Alabama secretary of state. The list was then placed under the temporary control of a Republican special master. During that time, there is no evidence that anyone tampered with the voter rolls, but many Alabamians questioned the accuracy of Alabama's voter list, leading some to be unsure of the true results of state and local elections.
Voters demand elections run by neutral professionals. As such, statewide election administration should be placed in the hands of a nonpartisan, term-limited state election commission. Such an agency would be led by individuals barred from partisan politics and strictly accountable to the people for honest elections. This would allow the secretary of state to focus on her core duty as custodian of state records.
Under this plan, the state election commission would be given the authority to hire politically uninvolved county election directors from within the merit system to handle voter registration and the conduct of elections. Our state's local elected officials would then have time to focus on their routine duties.
With a new group of election professionals, solutions to voting problems would fall into place, allowing for streamlined and secure early voting, quick and easy military voting, and other needed improvements.
(Adam Bourne is a Chickasaw city councilman and a lawyer who served as an assistant attorney general for the Alabama State Elections Division.)
