2002 Alabama gubernatorial election

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The 2002 Alabama gubernatorial election was held on November 5. With 669,105 votes or 48.95%, incumbent Democrat Don Siegelman lost re election to Republican Bob Riley (who got 672,225 votes or 49.17%), a margin of 3,120 votes or 0.22%. The close and controversial election was marked by high turnout. This was the third consecutive Alabama gubernatorial election where the incumbent was defeated. Riley was sworn in on January 20, 2003, marking what is to date the last time the Alabama Governor’s office changed partisan control. Primary elections were held on June 4. Both of the nominees faced less opposition than expected.

Initial returns showed Riley narrowly losing to Siegelman. Siegelman gave a victory speech on election night, and the Associated Press initially declared him the winner. However, officials in Baldwin County conducted a recount and retabulation of that county's votes after midnight, and after Democratic Party observers had gone home for the night. Approximately 6,000 votes initially credited to Siegelman were either removed from the total or reassigned to Riley in the recount, turning the statewide result in Riley's favor. Local Republican officials claimed the earlier returns were the result of a "computer glitch." Democratic requests to repeat the recount with Democratic observers present were rejected by Alabama courts and then Attorney General Bill Pryor. Siegelman and his supporters complained that these judges (and Pryor) were either elected as Republicans or appointed by Republican presidents. After over a week of fights in courtrooms and in the media, Siegelman, on November 18, 2002, made a televised address, saying that, "I've decided that a prolonged election controversy would hurt Alabama, would hurt the very people that we worked so hard to help", and abandoned his efforts to secure a recount of the Baldwin County vote, allowing Riley to take office.

Riley's victory was controversial and caused many commentators to recall the Florida election recount of 2000. In response to the allegation of a "computer glitch", Siegelman later stated: "[N]ow one would expect that if there was some kind of computer glitch or some kind of computer programming error, that it might have affected more than one race, but it further raised suspicions about vote stealing when the votes came back and they were certified, and the only person who lost votes was Don Siegelman, the Democrat, and the only person who gained votes was Bob Riley, the Republican." A number of analyses of the competing claims were undertaken at the time, with conflicting results. In one such study, Auburn University political scientist James H. Gundlach concluded that a detailed analysis of the returns, compared with 1998 results and returns from undisputed counties, "strongly suggests a systematic manipulation of the voting results." The Gundlach study also suggested a mechanism by which this could have been effected, and proposed a conclusion that Siegelman won. An earlier analysis reported by the Associated Press, using a less sophisticated comparison of gubernatorial and legislative returns, was claimed to indicate that the revised returns were more accurate, and that Riley probably won. The Gundlach paper offers a refutation of the conclusions of the Associated Press study. Largely as a result of this controversy, the Alabama Legislature later amended the election code to provide for automatic, supervised recounts in close races.