Alabama Resident Discovers He Can Still Vote in New York

A registered Alabama voter, who has lived in the state for more than 18 years, discovered this week that he is still eligible to receive an absentee ballot to vote in New York.

Todd Morgan, who has lived in Birmingham since 2002, registered as a voter in Alabama years ago, according to Alabama’s WBRC.

WBRC noted that Morgan “went to the New York state absentee ballot website and put in his name and old address and at first found nothing”; however, he later “typed in his name and his parents old address, and it showed him eligible to get an absentee ballot at a place he’s never lived.”

“I found that particularly scary, and I wondered to what extent this applies to other people,” Morgan said. “The fact that my vote exists in another state where, quite frankly, I have no business voting, that vote is just dangling out there for someone to potentially go out there and steal very easily, seemingly.”

WBRC stated that it “asked Secretary of State John Merrill’s office who’s responsible for alerting your old home county and state when you register to vote somewhere new.”

A spokesperson for Merrill said, “Voters are encouraged to inform their previous county registrar’s office of their move. However, registrars in Alabama will contact the voter’s previous jurisdiction to inform them.”

After the discovery, Morgan reached out to the county he once lived in and asked them to remove him from the voter roll.

“My advice would be to regard your right to vote just as highly as you do any other personal data,” Morgan suggested. “Whether it be credit card number, whether it be your Social Security Number.”

“Think about it from the standpoint of where do you presently live and where did you live before? And spend a few minutes to see if you are you still registered in a previous county or state. It’s very important that we look at that as a value, and see if there’s any potential for that valuable item to be exploited,” he added.