EXPOSED: Tommy Tuberville Spent Years Screaming About Voter Fraud. Turns Out He Committed It.
What A Surprise!
Tommy Tuberville wants to be Governor of Alabama. There’s just one problem: he may have committed the exact crime he built his Senate career railing against.
In 2018, Tuberville’s own tax records show he claimed Alabama residency. That same November, he and his wife Suzanne voted in Florida anyway. Not by accident. Not as an oversight. He confirmed it himself when a radio host asked him about it directly back in 2019. He voted in Florida. He voted for the full Republican ticket. He voted for Matt Gaetz.
He wasn’t supposed to.
The Records That Backfired
Here’s how this unraveled. Alabama law requires gubernatorial candidates to have lived in the state for seven consecutive years. Tuberville has spent years struggling to convince anyone he actually lives in Alabama, and for good reason.
He owns a $4 million, 4,000-square-foot beach house on the Gulf Coast of Florida that he’s held for nearly 20 years. His Alabama property was a three-bedroom, one-bathroom house in Auburn appraised at around $300,000, less than a tenth of the Florida home’s value. He sold that Alabama property entirely by 2023. In 2017, he filmed a promo for ESPN saying he moved to Florida after retiring from coaching and called it “a great place to live.” At a recent Alabama Sports Hall of Fame induction, he said he goes back to Auburn for three or four ball games a year before catching himself and adding that he “actually” lives there.
When Republican primary challenger Ken McFeeters gained the right to subpoena records through a state party election challenge, Tuberville suddenly released seven years of Alabama tax returns. The returns showed he claimed Alabama residency starting in August 2018. Case closed, his campaign implied.
Except Florida election records showed he voted there three months later.
The records he released to prove his innocence confirmed the problem instead.
A Walking Definition of Hypocrisy
This February, Tuberville stood on the Senate floor and demanded Congress pass the SAVE Act, legislation requiring proof of citizenship to register and photo ID to vote. He was fired up about it.
“I want my vote to count, and that’s the reason I’m here today,” he told his colleagues. “If we don’t secure our federal elections, we will become a banana republic.”
His vote did count in 2018. It counted in Florida, a state where his own tax records say he no longer lived.
Tuberville has spent years championing voter ID laws, election security measures, and the idea that voting where you don’t legally reside is a threat to American democracy. He has repeated versions of this argument dozens of times as a senator. Legal scholars now say that 2018 Florida vote could disqualify him from the gubernatorial race entirely, since it falls squarely within the seven-year residency window Alabama law requires.
McFeeters Has Subpoena Power Now
GOP challenger Ken McFeeters isn’t letting this go. The Alabama Republican Party granted him the power to subpoena up to five witnesses for sworn testimony and to demand records. McFeeters has also filed an ethics complaint over what he describes as improper reimbursements Tuberville collected for Florida travel using Senate funds and PAC money.
As a senator, Tuberville regularly used campaign funds and taxpayer dollars to fly to Florida, dine in its restaurants, and travel by car around the state. More than he did those same things in Alabama, by most accounts.
The subpoenas could pull utility bills, travel records, and financial documents that paint an even clearer picture of where Tuberville actually spent his time.
The Bottom Line
Tommy Tuberville spent his Senate career telling Alabama voters that election integrity was sacred, that people voting where they don’t live is a fundamental threat to the republic, and that the solution is stricter laws with real consequences.
He voted in Florida three months after his own tax records placed him in Alabama. He confirmed it on the radio. He has never denied it.
Legal experts say it could end his gubernatorial campaign. Alabama law does not make exceptions for senators who spent years explaining why exceptions should not exist.
The banana republic Tuberville warned about apparently had a polling place in Florida with his name on the voter rolls.