MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Two Democratic state lawmakers are making a push for the state to adopt early voting this year, with Alabama remaining one of three states without any form of it.
Two pre-filed bills have been endorsed by the League of Women Voters of Alabama, the local chapter of the national nonprofit voter advocacy organization. It’s president, Kathy Jones, said supporters of the effort have reason to be hopeful for its success this year.
“This is something that I think we stand a better chance this year of getting this bill through than we would have last year because it’s very clear that this is not just benefiting one party or the other, this would benefit all constituents,” Jones told Alabama Daily News.
The two bills are House Bill 59 and House Bill 71, sponsored by Reps. Thomas Jackson, D-Thomasville, and Adline Clarke, D-Mobile, respectively. Clarke filed a similar bill in 2023 and Jackson filed one in 2024. Neither advanced out of committee.
The more expansive of the two bills, HB71, would provide for a process for early voting to begin 17 days before election day, and end five days before. The bill would also require there to be one early voting center per 100,000 residents in each county. The bill would also require the secretary of state to adopt rules to prevent double voting, and would go into effect July 1 if adopted by the Alabama Legislature.
While HB 59 would also implement early voting, the period would be limited to one-week prior to Election Day and would require only one early voting center per county, regardless of its population.
Clarke told ADN that her motivation for filing the bill was simple: To increase voter turnout in the state, which during the 2024 presidential election was 58.5%, the lowest rate for a presidential election in the state in more than 30 years.
“Our voter turnout statewide has just been terribly low, and we as a state must find ways to get voters to participate in the electoral process, particularly younger voters; I think they would welcome the opportunity,” Clarke told ADN. “And actually, it’s the younger voters mostly who have asked about early voting and have requested that the state of Alabama begin offering early voting. They don’t understand why we are one of only a handful of states that don’t have early voting.”
The only alternative to one-day, in-person voting in Alabama is to vote by absentee ballot. Voters must provide a state-approved reason to vote absentee, including expected travel on Election Day or a disability.
“You have people who are juggling so much today; parents, single moms, older adults who are taking care of elderly parents,” Clarke said. “We all juggle so much in this day and time, and we just need the flexibility to get to the polls at a time that is convenient for us.”
In a post-election survey conducted by the League of Women Voters of Alabama, the organization found a significant discrepancy between the number of absentee ballot applications received, 66,703, and the number of absentee ballots counted on election night, 57,813, for a total difference of 8,890 across 11 counties. The survey found 2,168 absentee ballots not counted due to errors, and 3,149 absentee ballots not returned by voters. The discrepancy, Jones argued, was due to Alabama’s absentee ballot system, which she called “cumbersome” and ill-equipped to handle the number of voters wishing to vote outside of election day.
The renewed efforts to establish early voting in the state reflect the ongoing divide between Alabama Democrats and Republicans on election reform, with Republican state lawmakers prefiling multiple bills focusing on election integrity and security, and Democrats, on expanding voter accessibility.
That divide has widened since the passage of last year’s Senate Bill 1, a bill sponsored by Sen. Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, to target ballot harvesting by making it a Class B felony to pay another person with an absentee ballot application. It also made receiving a payment for assisting another person with an absentee ballot application a Class C felony, and assisting another person with an absentee ballot application without payment a Class A misdemeanor.
The bill did include exceptions for those with disabilities or who could not read or write, however, some Democratic lawmakers have argued the exceptions to be too broad, including Clarke, who in January prefiled a bill, House Bill 77, to establish more detailed guidelines to enable voters with disabilities to designate an individual to deliver their absentee ballot application to an election manager.
The bill would also establish a more detailed definition of what constitutes a disability, defining it as an Alabamians with “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.” Conversely, SB1 did not define disability, an omission that, at least in part, led to multiple groups halting their voter outreach efforts in 2024.