This is an opinion column.

Stories involving Alabama Republican Party chairman John Wahl tend to wind up in strange places.

Like, how did a butterfly farmer — real thing — become one of Alabama’s most powerful political figures?

Or how can someone vote with an ID they made themselves — also real — and not wind up in jail?

As party chairman, John Wahl has direct influence on major GOP decisions, and sometimes final say — for instance, whether Tommy Tuberville meets Alabama’s residency requirements to run for governor.

And now it turns out, John might not even be his real name. For most of his tenure as Alabama GOP chairman, he has had a Tennessee driver’s license under the name Nehemiah Wahl and is registered to vote there, too.

I warned you — strange places, and the trip from here to there can sometimes veer in bizarre directions, too. This jaunt begins on I-65.

A 2023 traffic ticket, obtained by AL.com, shows that John Wahl gave an Alabama State Trooper a Tennessee driver’s license with the name Nehemiah Ezekiel Wahl.

Tennessee voter records also show that Nehemiah Wahl registered to vote there in December 2020, the same year John Wahl successfully ran to represent Alabama as an elector in the Electoral College.

How could it be that Alabama’s Republican Party chairman uses a Tennessee driver’s license? And why would he be registered to vote there under this different name?

Last week, I asked Wahl by text — his request — whether Nehemiah was his real name, whether he had ever gone by Nehemiah and whether, as I had been told, he had given the name Nehemiah to get past U.S. Secret Service to visit Donald Trump during last year’s Alabama-Georgia football game.

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,” he said. “I don’t know who or what your sources are, but you have some bad information.”

After I let him know I had found that old speeding ticket and Tennessee voter registration, he wrote back.

“My first name is Nehemiah, and that’s not something I have ever tried to hide,” he said. “Many people, especially public figures, don’t use their first names or choose to go by nicknames. I have gone by John since my childhood, and that’s how everyone knows me.”

It’s not something he ever tried to hide, except for hours earlier when he told me my information was bad.

His name appears as John Wahl on Alabama election records, candidate filings, ethics disclosures and Alabama’s certification to the 2020 electoral college.

In fact, until the Ethics Commission changed its form in 2022, that agency also gave officials a special space for sharing nicknames so people could tell state Sen. James Thomas Waggoner and “Jabo” are the same person or that Rep. Mark Tuggle is sometimes called “Snuggles.”

Wahl never used that space, nor did he ever give a middle name, only John Wahl.

Alabama election records show he has consistently voted here under the name John Wahl, not Nehemiah.

I’ve looked and looked, and the only public records I’ve found where he used his real name were those in Tennessee.

In his reply to my follow-up questions, Wahl said he had intended to move to Tennessee in 2020 but never did full-time. But he did get a driver’s license there as Nehemiah Wahl. He is also registered to vote in Tennessee under that name, although election records show he hasn’t cast a ballot there.

And when he decided to stay in Alabama, he said, he didn’t get around to updating his license.

“The layers of disruption caused by COVID also made it difficult to obtain a replacement Alabama license,” Wahl wrote. “I acknowledge that I procrastinated on resolving this issue. I received a speeding ticket in April 2023, which served as a much-needed reminder to update my license. After that, I obtained an Alabama driver’s license, which I currently hold.”

This isn’t the first time Wahl has had issues with government ID — for instance, when voting.

In 2022, a Limestone County poll worker objected to Wahl and his extended family refusing to show driver’s licenses to vote. According to emails between Wahl and election officials, obtained by AL.com, Wahl pressured local election officials to have the poll worker removed, which they did.

That poll worker and another told me Wahl had shown them what appeared to be a state employee ID that they hadn’t seen before.

Later, John Wahl admitted to me that he had made the ID himself.

Is it strange that the Alabama GOP chairman has such trouble abiding by the state’s voter ID law when his party considers such a law necessary to prevent fraud? You might think so, but the party has never demanded he answer for it.

To the contrary, the state party has reelected Wahl chairman since then, and the Republican National Committee has chosen him to serve as vice chair for its southern region.

John Merrill, who was the Alabama Secretary of State back then, said Wahl’s homemade ID was not a legal form of voter identification under Alabama law. Merrill and his successor, Wes Allen, have both forwarded complaints about Wahl’s ID to Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, who has taken no action.

But why wouldn’t Wahl have a valid voter photo ID?

According to a 2016 deposition given by John’s brother Joshua Wahl, their family believed that biometric identification, including government photo IDs, was the Mark of the Beast foretold in Revelation.

“In particular, I object to the biometric nature of IDs in Alabama which started pursuant to the REAL ID Act,” Joshua Wahl testified. “And there’s a passage in Revelations 12 where it says that the forthcoming mark of the beast will be a number of a man. Biometrics by its nature is a number of a man. You know, that’s what makes me uncomfortable, and that goes against my convictions.”

Tennessee, unlike Alabama, has allowed those with religious objections to apply for driver’s licenses without photos.

“Is that what this is all about?” I asked in another follow-up text.

“My driver’s license has my picture on it,” he replied.

Here’s the thing I still don’t get. In 2022, Alabama’s GOP chairman refused to show a driver’s license to vote. He now says he had one, but it was from a state where he never lived full-time and he didn’t bother to get a new one in Alabama until at least a year later, because he procrastinated and it was a lot of trouble because of COVID.

Instead, as he has admitted before, he made his own ID. Because that was somehow easier?

No one likes trips to the DMV, but this is something different.

This is every story about John … err … Nehemiah Wahl — a game of bumper cars that never goes where you expect and leaving everyone with whiplash.

Why does all of this matter?

Wahl’s name has been floated as a possible candidate next year for Alabama lieutenant governor. As with the governor, the residency requirement to run for that office is seven years preceding the election.

While John Wahl might meet that requirement, Nehemiah Wahl might not.

But even if Wahl sits this election out, he wields significant power and authority.

In Alabama, a party chairman has remarkable power for someone who never has to appear on a ballot. In fact, under state law, it’s the chairs who give the state the names of their party nominees.

That includes Tommy Tuberville, who has multiple properties in Florida and residency questions of his own to answer. It’s Wahl’s job to vet Republican candidates, to make certain they are who they say they are and that they live where they say they live.

But how can we trust a man with a Tennessee license to decide who lives in Alabama?

Kyle Whitmire is the Washington watchdog columnist for AL.com and winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize. You can follow him on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X , Threads and Bluesky.