John Merrill And Mallory Hagan Duke It Out On Twitter

MONTGOMERY, AL - A brief social media scuffle broke out over the weekend between Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill and Democratic U.S. House candidate Mallory Hagan. The two candidates sparred over voting rights in Alabama, a subject that has grown heated as the midterm elections draw closer.

The initial blow was made when Hagan quoted Merrill as saying, "If You're too sorry or lazy to get up off your rear and to go register to vote...and then go vote, then you don't deserve that privilege. As long as I'm SOS of AL, you're going to have to show some initiative."

Merrill responded to Hagan's tweet by saying, "We have registered more voters than any other time in the history of the state with 1,109,095 registered voters since I became Secretary of State. We now have 3,442,170 registered voters. An all time high in state history. 93% of our eligible citizens are registered to vote."

Merrill added, "Liberals don’t care about helping people, they just care about promoting out of touch agendas..."

Hagan responded to Merrill by saying, "Wait— wanting ALL voters to have an understanding of their basic voting rights and have access to vote is an 'out of touch agenda?' Good to know."

(For more updates on local elections and free news alerts for your neighborhood, sign up for your local Patch morning newsletter.)

Merrill and Hagan swapped talking points, but the interaction became more heated when Hagan said, "

It’s hard to run for Congress if people can’t vote, John. Besides, @MilamForAL is the best candidate for the job. How about hopping off twitter and setting up a reminder for Alabama residents to register by Monday."

To which Merrill responded, "You need to get off Twitter and get out campaigning because you are way behind. The people in the third congressional district in Alabama are not liberal like the people in New York are. You’re going to find that out on November 6." Merrill was referring to the fact that Hagan lived in New York for several years before returning to Alabama.

Merrill's Twitter account has been under scrutiny recently, as a lawsuit was filed last month by the ACLU because he blocked people from his account.

Hagan is running in Alabama's 3rd Congressional District against incumbent Republican Mike Rogers, and Merrill is running for re-election against Democrat Heather Milam.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images