Alabama’s Secretary of State reacts to long voting lines in other states

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) - While there is no early voting in Alabama, many people are delivering their absentee ballots in person.

In Jefferson County, many people are choosing to deliver the ballots instead of voting on Election Day due to the pandemic - a nationwide trend.

“We have great plans to make sure we don’t have long lines on Election Day,” said Secretary of State John Merrill.

Merrill says their plans are to accommodate record-breaking numbers.

“Rest assured, we are going to have the largest number of people voting in the history of the state, we are going to be somewhere between 2.5 and 2.8 million people on November 3.”

The plans include using technology to make the process more efficient.

“We are introducing electronic poll books in 63 or 67 of the counties,” said Merrill.

He says they will reduce the wait by two thirds. Electronic poll books are described as, “an easy way to check in using your driver’s license, when they scan it, it instantly pulls up your image,” he said.

Then, you sign in and it verifies your signature.

Be sure to check alabamavotes.gov to see what IDs are acceptable.

UPDATE: In Jefferson County, the courthouse was originally scheduled to be open for early voting on Saturday, October 17. We were told Wednesday that is no longer the case. No word from officials on why.

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