Perry County Politician Indicted for Voting Multiple Times in 2 Elections
A Democrat politician in Perry County has been indicted for voter fraud after he allegedly voted multiple times in two separate elections last year, district attorney Michael Jackson and Secretary of State John Merrill announced Wednesday.
In a press release, the prosecutor and Alabama's outgoing election officer said Albert Turner, Jr., the chairman of the Perry County Commission, voted more than once in two separate 2022 elections.
Turner is the son of late civil rights activist Albert Turner, Jr., and he is in his third term as a Perry County Commissioner. He also serves as President and CEO of the Emerson Company, a lobbying firm operating out of Montgomery and Marion.
Jackson and Merrill said in the primary election last May, Turner voted multiple times by inserting more than one completed ballot into the tabulator at a polling location in Perry County.
In the general election in November, Turner is accused of ballot harvesting by presenting multiple completed absentee ballots for mailing from the Post Office.
Both matters are still under investigation, they said, but Turner has been indicted on felony and misdemeanor counts of voter fraud.
"I have heard the cry from the citizens and the people running for office to clean up the elections in the Black Belt," Jackson said in a statement.
He asked anyone with information on either of these indictments or other possible instances of voter fraud to either his office or Merrill's to report it at 334-242-7210.
Merrill has been secretary of state since 2015, but decided not to seek re-election or higher office in 2022 after a series of scandals regarding an extramarital affair broke out the year before.
He said during his tenure, Alabama has had seven convictions for voter fraud and three elections overturned. Merrill did not say if Albert's actions could have changed the outcome of either election in which he was accused of voting more than once.
"It is not appropriate at this time to comment because a lot of variables that factor into that decision and these matters are currently under investigation," Merrill said.
“Since January 19, 2015, we have worked extraordinarily hard to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat in Alabama,” Merrill said in a statement. “While the accused is innocent until proven guilty, it is important to know that this incident, just like the other 1805 incidents we have investigated over the last eight years, will receive the full attention of this office as we confirm for the people for the State of Alabama that we are the gold standard for election administration in the United States.”