Andrew Sorrell joins the Brandon and Christopher Show Podcast

Alabama State Auditor Andrew Sorrell (R) recently joined the Brandon and Christopher Show Podcast (BCS) to discuss the State Auditor's office and his campaign for the Republican nomination for Alabama Secretary of State.

Incumbent Secretary of State Wes Allen (R) is running for Lieutenant Governor so the office is open in 2026.

We asked Andrew Sorrell how we can improve the security of Alabama elections.

"We are ranked number two in the country on the Heritage election security scorecard," Sorrell said of Alabama elections. "Tennessee has since passed ahead of us and I believe Florida is either tied with us or is a close third."

Sorrell said that there are two big categories where the state can improve its elections. The first of these is the cleanliness of the voter rolls

"Wes Allen did identify 3,281 likely illegals," on the rolls. "Some of them may have since become citizens."

They were registered with their immigrant ID numbers instead of their social security number, so Allen tried to have them removed from the rolls ahead of the 2024 election.

"There was a federal injunction put on us by a federal judge, because you are not allowed to do voter file maintenance within 90 days of an election and we were at 86 days," Sorrell said. "We have lots more work that we can do to clean up our voter rolls."

The second area of concern is post-election audits.

"We are the last state in the nation that doesn't audit our elections," said Sorrell. "We have pretty good elections; but we have some big gaping holes in how we conduct our elections. How bad must the other 48 states behind us be that we are ranked number two?"

"We have done this (a post-election audit) one time in Alabama," said Sorrell. "In 2022 my good friend (Representative) David Standridge carried a post-election audit in three counties. The counties had to volunteer for it. Which right there was the first problem; because the counties that cheat are probably not the ones that are volunteering for the audit."

"They hand counted the ballots to see if it matched with the machine tabulation," said Sorrell. "In Houston County and Marshall County it did match the result. In Dallas County it did not."

Two votes that should have gone for Kay Ivey the machine wrongly tabulated for Yolanda Flowers.

"Two votes does not seem like a lot; but in the Conecuh County Sheriff's race one vote was the difference. The Tom Whatley Jay Hovey race came down to one vote," Sorrell explained. "(State Representative) Debbee Wood won her primary a few years ago by six votes."

Sorrell said that he favored Wood's legislation to do a limited audit of the coming 2026 election even though he would have liked a strong bill.

"I appreciate that Representative Debbee Wood for being the only legislator fighting for it," said Sorrell.

That bill passed the House; but ultimately failed in the Senate because they failed to finish their business in the thirty days allotted to the Legislature for a special session.

"The bill stalled there (the Senate) last year," Sorrell said.

"Other states hand count five percent of their vote," Sorrell said. "You do it before the certification. What do you do if you conduct an audit after the winners had been certified. That would be Pretty embarrassing."

"Sometimes there is a disconnect between public perception and what the public wants and what actually gets passed into law," said Sorrell. "When you run polling on post-election audits in Alabama high 80s 87 to 88 percent of Republican primary voters. If you ask Republican primary voters who won the 2020 presidential election 90 percent believe that the election was stolen."

There was a similar situation with concealed carry, before he (when Sorrell was a state legislator) and Representative Shane Stringer worked to pass permitless concealed carry in Alabama.

We asked Sorrell if the Secretary of State's office was getting business filings done in a timely manner.

"I file with the Secretary of State's office regularly," said Sorrell who owns several businesses in the Shoals area. "I can tell you that I always get them back on the same day. It used to not be that way. Before John Merrill got there (as Secretary of State) it would take sixty, sometimes ninety days."

Sorrell said that Merrill got the Secretary of State caught up on their business filings and Wes Allen has kept them caught up on the business filings.

"What I am not happy with are the fees being charged," said Sorrell. "I believe some of these fees are exorbitant to be frank. If you shut down your entity there is a one hundred dollar fee." "A $100 fee to close down your entity. I think that should be free or at most ten dollars."

"If the fee costs less than the administration cost of performing then you are subsidizing," said Sorrell. "If the fee costs more than the administrative costs its no longer a fee it is a tax."

"I want to make it as cheap as possible to do business inAlabama," said Sorrell.

"The fee to purchase the voter roll," is another area that he would like to see the state reduce costs. "$38,000 is what it would cost."

"We are the most expensive in the nation by far," said Sorrell. "I could reduce that fee. My plan is to reduce it 90 percent. I am considering maybe 99 percent." "This is public information and every two years before the primary the probate judges have to publish in a newspaper that has to circulate in the county the voter list."

The only way to get the voter list – outside of paying the Secretary of State's office $38,000 – is to "Go to all 67 counties two weeks before the election and purchase a newspaper. That fee is on the chopping block if I am secretary of state."

We asked if sharing that information more widely would be a security risk.

"There are some people who can have their information redacted – some public officials, first responders," answered Sorrell. "This is the registered voter list." "I think that all should be public information." "The other 49 states all do this and they do this cheaper than us."

Sorrell currently serves as State Auditor.

"There are three main duties of the State Auditor," Sorrell explained. "The first of which is auditing the state's property. There are $1.3 billion of taxpayer owned state property. There are 180 state boards and agencies we are auditing. There are approximately 300,000 inventory items that are worth $500 or more. What we are auditing is non-consumable personal property."

"The second thing is, I serve on the Board of Adjustments with the Secretary of State, the Treasurer and the Finance Director," said Sorrell. "You cannot sue the state of Alabama; but they did create a mechanism where you can recoup money from the state if you have a valid claim against the state. You bring it to the Board of Adjustments and get paid if we deem your claim as valid."

Until this session teachers who were hurt on the job could not get workman's compensation so they had to file a claim with the Board of Adjustments.

"We were the last state in that nation to give teacher's workmen's comp in Alabama. I think that was something that should have been done long ago."

"We get sometimes $30 million dollars in claims every quarter, and we award about $10 million of that $30 million dollars in claims, said Sorrell. "The third major duty is appointing board of registrars members."

The Board of Registrars in every county except Jefferson County are appointed by the Auditor, the Governor, and the Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries.

Sorrell owns a textbook company, a pawnshop 'Gold, Guns, and Guitars' in Muscle Shoals, and a real estate company. He served in the Alabama House of Representatives from 2018 to 2022, and has served as State Auditor since 2023.

Sorrell is presently the only declared candidate for Secretary of State.

The Republican Primary is May 19, 2026.