Because I was involved, this story is written in the first person.

Tuesday, July 17. when I voted early in the day, I noticed the race for Alabama House District 17 between Phil Segraves and Tracy Estes was not on my ballot. I thought perhaps there was a reason, but I did not ask. Tuesday evening I texted Winston County Probate Judge Sheila Moore asking her for the results of the returns from that day’s election runoff. After I received them, I received a call from a friend who told me she voted at the same location as I had and had a problem. She too noticed the District 17 race was not on her or her husband’s ballot but unlike me, she did ask why the race was not on her ballot.

She was informed by a poll worker, that particular voting location was not in District 17. She was sure she had voted in the race in June. After a lengthy discussion, I contacted Judge Moore. She, in turn, contacted the Secretary of State’s Office and Judge Lee Carter. Judge Carter contacted me. We discussed the issue and I admitted I could be wrong in thinking I had the District 17 race on my ballot in June also. My friends were much surer and she had found other people who stated the same thing had happened to them. Social media came alive.

Judge Moore assured me in our conversation the machine would have caught the error and not accepted the ballot. She had spoken to Greg Woodyard with ES&S (voting machine company) and all prior verification from looking at maps, precinct parts, ballot galley reports, confirmation from ES&S of the coding of the memory sticks that there was no way any other ballot style could have been voted in the machine, verifying ballot styles printed on the poll list beside the voters name and machine printouts from the opening of the Polls with the zero totals and closing of the polls printouts there was no evidence that there were any wrongful voting or wrongful ballots issued at that polling location.

Still, the question was public. Was there a problem? After a call to me from Judge Carter, it was decided to make sure there was no error on the ballots or machine and clear the air.

At 2 p.m. Wednesday, I met Judge Carter, Judge Shelia Moore and J.D. Snoddy, Winston County Circuit Clerk, in the Winston County Courtroom. The sealed boxes of ballots from the June primary polling location in question were opened following the signing of a court order by Carter to do so. The 800 plus ballots were all examined by all four of us. Not one ballot was found which contained the District 17 race.

As Judge Carter explained, he has many people swear in court they either saw something, heard something or otherwise testified to something which never existed. It is not uncommon, yet the people are convinced of what they thought they saw. I admitted from the beginning I was not sure, but the phone call from my friend made me think I had, in fact, voted in the race in June. After I saw the clear evidence, not only did I not vote in that race at my polling location, neither did anyone else.