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Judge Mark Erwin urges voters to check registrations after motor-voter audit; outlines poll-worker changes
Summary
Judge Mark Erwin told commissioners the county will see effects from a motor-voter audit that moved about 37,000 voter files to ‘inactive.’ He outlined a public-outreach campaign, a vendor texting contract on the agenda, and a plan to recruit county employees to staff polls.
Judge Mark Erwin, speaking to the Mobile County Commission at its conference, warned commissioners that a recent motor-voter registration audit conducted by the secretary of state has left tens of thousands of county voter files flagged as inactive and urged a vigorous public-outreach effort ahead of the May 19 primary.
Erwin said roughly 37,000 Mobile County voter files were impacted by the audit, including about 22,000 within the city limits of Mobile. "We're gonna see it," he told commissioners, adding that many flagged records did not reflect actual moves but were triggered by address mismatches identified in routine audit matching. He said voters who received audit mailings and did not respond within required windows were moved to inactive status automatically by the statewide process.
To reduce confusion at the polls, Erwin described two complementary strategies. First, a countywide public-relations push — including county social accounts, traditional media and a forthcoming short-form social campaign — will encourage voters to check and reconfirm registrations online at least 14 days before election day. "The best way to avoid the headache of finding out you're inactive on election day is to find out you're inactive before election day," Erwin said.
Second, Erwin reviewed the in-person remedy at polling places: a voter who appears as inactive at check-in is referred to the poll leader (judge/inspector), who can use a re-identification "short form" to override the inactive flag and issue a ballot certificate that allows the voter to cast a regular ballot. "All you have to do is do the re-identification form, which we call the short form," Erwin said, explaining that this avoids forcing eligible voters into provisional ballots if poll procedures are followed.
Erwin also said elections staff have reorganized poll-worker distribution across precincts, resulting in a net reduction in overall poll-worker headcount but a more targeted allocation based on historical turnout. He proposed recruiting one volunteer county employee in each of the county's 78 precincts to serve on election day under a "Powering the Polls" initiative; employees would take their usual leave and be paid the standard poll-worker rate for the day.
On the agenda for the commission's regular meeting, Erwin noted a proposed contract with a person-to-person texting vendor (listed on the agenda as a RumbleUp subscription) to send registration reminders and election information; that contract is scheduled for consideration Monday pending legal review. Erwin said the county is also budgeting for training and deployment of election-technology support specialists ahead of the primary.
Erwin thanked county elections, IT and GIS staff for support and said the county's infrastructure is in improved condition but will require continued diligence as the election approaches. The commission did not vote on any of Erwin's proposals during the conference; most measures were previewed for action at the upcoming regular meeting.
