Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has asked a judge to toss out a lawsuit by former gubernatorial candidate Lindy Blanchard and others that claims electronic voting machines in Alabama are inaccurate and subject to manipulation.
“Plaintiffs ask this Court to rewrite Alabama’s election laws based on nothing more than speculation and innuendo,” attorneys with Marshall’s office wrote in a motion to dismiss the case filed Wednesday in Montgomery County Circuit Court.
Blanchard’s lawsuit asks the court to bar the use of electronic vote-counters used in all 67 Alabama counties and require a hand count of ballots in the general election in November.
The lawsuit claims, in part, that the use of the electronic voting machines violates due process because the machines are capable of being connected to the internet and hacked.
Lawyers with the AG’s office said the court has no jurisdiction over what they characterized as hypothetical claims.
“Plaintiffs do not claim that their ballots will likely be miscounted,” the motion to dismiss says. “They allege only that someone’s ballot might be miscounted, if a voting machine is ever hooked up to the internet and if someone hacks it.”
Blanchard’s lawyers in the case include Andrew Parker of Minneapolis, who has represented My Pillow founder Mike Lindell, a vocal supporter of unsubstantiated claims about fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Lindell has alleged that Alabama voting systems were hacked and that thousands of votes cast for Donald Trump were changed to votes for Joe Biden. Secretary of State John Merrill said Lindell’s claim was false and could not have happened.
Merrill is named as a defendant in the Blanchard lawsuit, along with the members of the Alabama Electronic Voting Committee, a panel created by the Legislature to certify electronic voting machines for use in Alabama.
“We are confident that our elections are safe, secure, transparent and fully accountable. And not only do we know this, the people of Alabama know this,” Merrill said in response to the lawsuit when it was filed in May.
The lawsuit claims that the Electronic Voting Committee failed to publicly inspect and certify machines, but the state’s motion to dismiss disputes that, citing minutes of the committee’s meetings that were attached as exhibits to the lawsuit.
“The minutes show that the Committee does conduct public inspections,” the motion to dismiss says. “The minutes show that the Committee certifies machines that satisfactorily pass such inspection. And the minutes show that electronic vote counting systems in Alabama are not and cannot be connected to the internet.”
Besides Blanchard, plaintiffs in the case include state Rep. Tommy Hanes, R-Bryant, who lost in the Republican primary in his bid for reelection in his north Alabama district, and Focus on America, a social welfare organization based in DeKalb County.
Blanchard, a first-time candidate who was ambassador to Slovenia under President Trump, finished second to Gov. Kay Ivey in the May 24 Republican primary, receiving 19 percent of the vote.
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