SYLACAUGA, Ala. – The Sylacauga Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors held its regularly scheduled meeting Monday with guest speaker Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill addressing issues surrounding proper voter identification.
“I think it’s so important for us to continue to promote voter registration and photo I.D. throughout the state,” said Merrill. “In Alabama, we want to ensure that every eligible, U.S. citizen, that is a resident of Alabama, is registered to vote and has a photo I.D. and we want to make sure they are participating in the electoral process. So, they’ve got to be registered by October 24.”
The Secretary has held the position for twenty-two months and has cut expenditures in his office by more than $1.6 million to date. While cutting costs has been important to the Secretary, he said making sure all Alabamians benefit from legal voting registration is key.
“It’s very important for all those security mechanisms to be in place. But it’s also very important for people’s voices to be heard,” said Merrill.
Merrill said the only way to do that is by making it easily accessible to them through electronic registration and a mobile app for iOS and Android.
“Since I’ve become Secretary of State, we have registered 400,000 people. We’ve gone from 2.8 million registered voters to 3.2 million registered voters. We have registered well more than 150,000 people with our mobile apps,” said Merrill. He is optimistic the number will continue to rise.
To learn more about Secretary of State John Merrill, click here.
Michael Brannon for SylacaugaNews.com | © 2016, SylacaugaNews.com/Marble City Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
