John Wahl, 36, the Alabama Republican Party chair, is the scion of a politically prominent northern Alabama family who claim they’re exempt from their state’s election law requiring photo ID to vote.
A local news source says (here), “Under Alabama law, a person can vote without photo ID only if two poll workers swear an affidavit saying they recognize the voter and know they are registered to vote. The Wahls … would ask the poll workers to let them vote through this exception.”
Wahl explains his family are “intensely private” Anabaptists (described here), who he says “are well known for their concerns about pictures or the way pictures are used.” Wahl himself, though, isn’t shy about posing for pictures (see photo at left).
The local news source notes, “Some states have incorporated a religious exemption into their voter ID laws. Alabama, however, is not one of them.”
And it was Wahl, not his family members, who pollworker Clyde Martin asked for a voter ID when he voted in the 2021 elections. After all, he drove to the polling place, so he should have a driver’s license, right?
Nope, no driver’s license, left it at home. He produced a dodgy ID (photo, right) instead. Martin accepted it, but told him he’d need a proper ID in future elections.
That’s when Wahl got Martin fired from his pollworker position. And Wahl used the same dodgy ID in the next election just to prove he could.
We Americans believe in fair play, including having the same rules for everyone. (“What’s good for me, is good for thee.”) We don’t like it when someone throws their weight around, nor does hypocrisy sit well with us.
And given all the hullabaloo Republicans have raised about requiring photo ID to vote, the idea of a Republican poobah claiming a religious exemption for himself, in a state without one in its election laws, isn’t a good look.
But as we’re seeing time and again, Republicans think they don’t have to follow anybody’s rules.