In November of last year, Albert Turner Jr., who had been serving on the Perry County Commission since 2000 when he inherited his father’s position, allegedly engaged in some fraudulent activity involving absentee ballots. According to District Attorney Michael Jackson and Secretary of State John Merrill, Mr. Turner supposedly presented an undisclosed number of completed, mailed-in absentee ballots to a Perry County grand jury. As a result of this alleged incident, the two government officials have opened up an investigation into what happened.
When asked about the potential impact that this fraud could have had on the outcome of the elections, Merrill was unable to comment as he said there were “a lot of variables” that would need to be taken into consideration before such a conclusion could be made. However, he did make clear that his office has worked hard since 2015 to ensure voting is easy and fraud is hard across Alabama. He added that these accusations will receive all due attention and scrutiny from his office, as it does for all 1805 similar incidents they have investigated during their years in service.
Turner himself has responded with claims of innocence and even gone so far as to accuse Merrill of political motivations behind the charges leveled against him two days before his term as Secretary of State ended. The Facebook page associated with Turner also echoed these sentiments by suggesting that Jackson’s “bogus” charges were nothing more than “political theatre,” while also affirming Turner’s belief that no ballot stuffing was done by him but rather “by the people of Perry County.”
The statement later went on to allege that Merrill had visited Turner’s courthouse office just weeks before asking that he be given some business at his new job at an engineering firm in Mississippi – an accusation which remains unsubstantiated at this time.
Albert Turner Sr., who passed away in 2000, was a well-known civil rights activist who was an advisor to Martin Luther King Jr., participating in historical marches such as the 1965 Selma-Montgomery march for voting rights alongside King himself. His son Albert Jr., now facing allegations of voter fraud and other electoral violations, has served multiple terms on the Perry County Commission since then, but time will tell if this recent controversy will affect his standing or future aspirations going forward.