Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler has asked Gov. Kay Ivey to ban door-to-door squads in Alabama for the COVID vaccine.
Citizens on Zeigler’s social media pages are e-mailing Ivey asking for the ban.
On Sunday, Zeigler asked Ivey to “use the strongest steps to clearly direct federal agents and their recruits that their entry onto home properties in Alabama could legally be considered trespassing.”
Zeigler’s request followed an announcement by President Joe Biden Tuesday that workers would be recruited to go to targeted households or the general public checking vaccine compliance and promoting vaccination. Biden stated, “Now, we need to go to community-by-community, neighborhood-by-neighborhood, and oftentimes, door-to-door — literally knocking on doors — to get help to the remaining people protected from the virus.”
Two state governors quickly objected to the door-to-door canvass in their states.
South Carolina Gov. William Masters stated, “A South Carolinian’s decision to get vaccinated is a personal one for them to make and not the government’s.”
McMaster wrote in a letter to health board chairman Mark Elam, “Enticing, coercing, intimidating, mandating, or pressuring anyone to take the vaccine is a bad policy which will deteriorate the public’s trust and confidence in the State’s vaccination efforts. The prospect of government vaccination teams showing up unannounced or unrequested at the door of ‘targeted’ homeowners or on their property will further deteriorate the public’s trust and could lead to potentially disastrous public safety consequences.”
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson stated, “I have directed our health department to let the federal government know that sending government employees or agents door-to-door to compel vaccination would NOT be an effective OR a welcome strategy in Missouri!”
While Ivey has not made a statement yet, her press secretary made what Zeigler called a “weak press statement with no action.”
Gina Maiola, Ivey press secretary, stated Friday, “We are all for educating people on the COVID-19 vaccine, but from the little we know about this program, it does not seem like the answer. Governor Ivey has no plans to put in a request for government workers to knock on people’s doors here in Alabama.”
Zeigler said, “Gov. Ivey should go much farther and clearly ban home intrusions by vaccine squads in Alabama.”
The White House later clarified that the door-to-door workers could be community people recruited for the task.
Zeigler’s requested to the governor, “I ask that you immediately take the strongest steps to clearly direct federal agents and their recruits that their entry onto home properties in Alabama could legally be considered trespassing. The Biden plan to have door-to-door visits by agents of the government or even local recruits is wrong on several levels. The decision to take or not take the COVID vaccine is each individual’s decision. A federal intrusion onto the home properties of Alabama citizens would be a troubling infringement of the Fourth and Tenth Amendments.”
Zeigler says some door-to-door vaccine visits were already made in Jefferson County, Alabama’s largest county.
