Alabama Secretary of State discusses new voter registration database

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) - Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen was in Huntsville on Tuesday to discuss the new voter registration database called the Alabama Voter Integrity Database (AVID).

Allen says the new database will protect against ballot harvesting, which is the gathering of completed mail-in and absentee ballots.

Nearly half of the United States use the ERIC database, which is a privately owned system. Allen says he wanted the new database to be owned and operated by Alabama.

“AVID is an Alabama base solution. That’s one thing I promised on the campaign trail. Once we withdrew from ERIC I was going to make sure my team came up with an Alabama based solution. This information is all housed in Alabama and not sent out of state. All of the information on the Alabama taxpayers and the Alabama voters are not sent out of state to a private third party,” Allen said.

AVID will keep track of registered voters in the state and will be able to flag anyone committing voter fraud. The main concern is with people who move out of state and do not update their voter registration.

Allen says right now, they are only partnered with five states but he is planning on partnering with more.

“Working alongside ALEA and making sure we have the national change of address on file, making sure we have state partnerships with other states, five states so far, we’re working on other states to exchange voter information and then the last portion is having access to the social security death index. To make sure, if anyone passes away, no matter in state or all over the country, that we get that information and we can remove those individuals that have passed away,” he said.

Allen says voters who are found inactive because they have moved, can become active again once they update their voter registration, with their current address information.

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