The Southern Poverty Law Center engaged in “disinformation” that is “dangerous and potentially illegal” when it issued a news release Monday blaming Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen’s office for a postcard sent to Montgomery County voters misidentifying their congressional district, a lawyer in Allen’s office told the organization Tuesday.

The postcard was delivered to voters by the Montgomery County Board of Registrars and incorrectly identified voters in Alabama’s newly drawn 2nd Congressional District as residing in Alabama’s 7th Congressional District.

Zane Snipes, chair of the Montgomery County Board of Registrars, blamed the error on a “computer glitch,” according to the Alabama Reflector.

“A certain number of days before the primary, we wanted to print postcards of all the active and inactive voters of Montgomery County, primarily to tell them they were all in District 2,” Snipes said. “Somewhere within our fixing of the system, we just had a computer glitch, or a software glitch, that picked on about 4,000 voters.”

The SPLC’s release, which remained online as of 9 p.m. Tuesday, encouraged voters to check their registration to ensure their information is correct “as a means of mitigating the damage caused by Alabama’s election officials.”

In a letter to the SPLC, Michael L. Jones, Jr., general counsel for the secretary of state’s office, said he confirmed details “which emphatically disprove SPLC’s allegations,” including that Allen’s office “has not provided inaccurate voter registration to the Montgomery County Board of Registrars” or other county election officials and that the office “has no record” of producing an official voter list to the SPLC since the 2nd Congressional District was redrawn.

Jones, who also said congressional assignment data in the statewide voter registration database is “currently correct,” said the facts give the appearance that the SPLC “has chosen to hold and strategically weaponize the release of information that may have been partially true or while Montgomery County officials were working to update congressional district data… . Such is no longer true, however, and was also not true when SPLC issued its media release.”

“SPLC’s choice has likely caused significant disruption and may ultimately adversely impact today’s primary election,” Jones continued. “Again, had accurate information been sought initially, SPLC may have avoided confusing Alabama voters altogether.

The 2nd district race favors Democrats after redistricting and is one of the few districts across the country expected to flip from red to blue.

“SPLC’s tactics are dangerous and potentially illegal,” Jones wrote. “The disinformation circulated by your organization has likely hindered Alabama’s electorate from freely exercising their right of suffrage, causing persons to not vote who otherwise would have. Moreover, as today’s primary election proceeds, SPLC intentionally persists in furthering its erroneous propaganda.”

In response, SPLC said the blame resides with Allen.

“[T]he potential for confusion of Alabama voters lies at Secretary Allen’s doorstep, not SPLC’s. What SPLC’s release attempted to do was inform voters of the erroneous mailings (which Secretary Allen and local election officials had not yet done) and encourage them to verify their correct voter information, as a means of mitigating the damage caused by Alabama’s election officials,” wrote SPLC Deputy Legal Director Bradley E. Heard.

Heard said he told Jones on Monday that Allen “bears the ultimate responsibility for maintaining an accurate and current statewide voter registration database and for supervising the state’s local election officials.

“In that regard,” Heard wrote, “we remind the Secretary of his duty under federal law to maintain all records relating to the accuracy and currency of voter registration records—including all communications regarding the erroneous mailings sent to Montgomery County voters—for at least two years beyond the date of the primary election.”