Alabama Dems to sue secretary of state

By Katie Stallcup

Published: September 24, 2008

The Alabama Democratic Party will file a lawsuit against Secretary of State Beth Chapman demanding free updates to the registered voter lists, state party Chairman Joe Turnham said Wednesday.

The secretary of state’s office provides one free copy of the voter list a year to each party. Beyond that, a charge of approximately $28,000 is applied.
Turnham said by his interpretation of state law, the parties should get a free update for each statewide election.

“We’re 40 days from the election,” Turnham said. “The last update we have is from April. Tens of thousands of new voters have registered, and we don’t have any way to reach them… We live and die off this voter file.”

With old telephone and address information, candidates can’t reach voters, he said.

The party is taking the suit against Chapman, a Republican, to the circuit court in Montgomery.

“We’re going to ask the circuit judge to call an emergency hearing on it…” he said.

Turnham said he hopes to have the hearing and a ruling next week.

The Alabama Republican Party also received only one voter list update this year, Chairman Mike Hubbard said.

Hubbard said he doesn’t have a problem with that.

“We just comply with the way she (Chapman) is handling it,” Hubbard said. “We’re doing our own updates. If we want another file, we’ll pay for it. I don’t think the taxpayer’s job is to provide a voter list to the political parties every time. We’re certainly not whining about it, we’re not crying about it, and we’re absolutely not filing a lawsuit over it.”

The Associated Press contributed to this article.