ALGOP Chairman John Wahl calls on changes to primary system after ‘crossover voting’ issues

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Photo credit: Tommy Tuberville Facebook

“Crossover voting” has become a hot topic of conversation among Republican leaders. Since 2010, crossover voting has not been allowed in primary runoff elections in Alabama. However, voters in Alabama are not required to register with a party prior to voting, so there is no mechanism to prevent crossover voting from happening in Republican primary elections because Alabama has open primaries.

After Mo Brooks accused Senate opponent Katie Britt of soliciting Democrat votes in last month’s primary, Jennifer Montrose, president of the West Alabama Republican Assembly, issued a resolution requesting the Republican Party Steering Committee conduct “a fully public hearing or meeting with notice to the public to consider the facts and potential sanctions against candidate Katie Britt.”

Now Alabama GOP chairman John Wahl is also calling for changes in the way Alabama Republican primaries are handled.

Yellowhammer News reported that Alabama GOP chairman John Wahl said the comments that Alabama Democratic Party executive director Wade Perry made were “concerning”. Perry commented on Twitter about how “helpful” Republican Senate candidate Katie Britt was in electing Doug Jones to the U.S. Senate in 2017. Wahl said it was a wake-up call for the Republicans on how Democrats were trying to influence the Republican primary process.

Wahl argued on WVNN’s “The Yaffee Program” that it was time for a closed primary system in Alabama.

“I’ll tell you one thing — next legislative cycle, I’m going to encourage closing the primary,” he commented, “and having a registered party system where we know only registered Republicans will be voting in the Republican primary.”

Wahl continued, “[W]e are seeing in Alabama a push from the Democrats to try and insert themselves into our primary and have influence in picking out nominees,” he said, “and I think it’s very inappropriate.”

Wahl said changing the primary process would be a major focus for him next session.

“I’d like to think that even in politics good common sense reasoning and a good argument, when you can explain it, can carry the day. For me this is one of my number one targets for the next legislative cycle,” he concluded.