So, the 2022 Alabama Party Primaries are behind us, and we can now look back to what happened.
We have our party nominees and a number of run-offs that will be decided on June 21.
One of the underlying stories from that day was voter turnout. There were predictions by the Alabama Secretary of State’s office that there could be between 28 to 32% of the state’s voters out on election day. Instead, the voter participation was 23.4%, which was 850,463 ballots cast, less than a quarter of those registered to vote in Alabama.
Turn out for elections is at its highest in Alabama during presidential contest, which has had between 60 to 72% of voters for elections in the past 20 years.
You would have thought with high profile races for the Alabama governor’s office and the United States Senate, there would have been a lot more voters who would have shown up, but they did not. There could be a number of reasons why folks did not show up to vote. Some pundits believe the avalanche of negative advertisements depressed the vote, while others blamed simple apathy about the candidates, which caused others to sit the election out altogether.
Whatever the reason, with the upcoming run-off, there could be even lower numbers of those showing up at the polls. Thus, campaigns are gearing back up to figure out what they need to do to get their voters back out once again.
We will see in three weeks if candidates are indeed successful in those efforts.
Paul DeMarco is a former member of the Alabama House of Representatives. He can be followed on Twitter at @Paul_DeMarco and his weekly radio programs can be heard on stations across the state.
