MONTGOMERY, Ala. – As was widely expected, voter turnout for Tuesday’s special congressional primary election was extremely low.
Alabama, a state with relatively low voter participation, is used to seeing turnout numbers well below national averages. But combining election date changes and voter confusion led to a recent low for the state.
Of the 2,165,142 registered voters in Alabama’s 1st, 2nd, 6th and 7th Congressional Districts, only 113,493 cast a ballot on Tuesday, according to the secretary of state’s website. That’s a voter turnout of 5.24%.
The other two elections this summer – the May 19 primary and June 16 primary runoff – had turnout rates of 23.16% and 10.74%, respectively.
Gov. Kay Ivey called the special primary after the U.S. Supreme Court limited the consideration of race when drawing congressional districts via its May decision in Louisiana v. Callais. This ruling ultimately allowed Alabama to revert to a Legislature-drawn map more friendly to Republicans.
Asked about turnout, Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen said in a statement that he is committed to ensuring only eligible American citizens are voting in Alabama’s elections and that the state’s voter rolls are “clean and accurate.” Allen said he is proud to have “such a high level of election security” in the state.
“I have always been clear that I believe in Election Day, not election month,” Allen told Alabama Daily News. “Initiatives claimed to increase turnout like no excuse absentee voting, unsolicited mass-mail voting, curbside ballot drop boxes, and same-day voter registration lead to the chaos and confusion we have seen in blue states.”
Outside of voters not knowing there was an election or being unable to make it to the polls, the lack of contested races can also explain the low turnout. Only five of the eight primary contests had competition, with the 6th District as the only one with candidate choices from both parties.
Voter turnout at the county level
The four affected districts span parts of 40 of Alabama’s 67 counties. Some counties fell entirely into one district, some were split into two holding elections and others had very small parts involved in an election.
Because the data available from the secretary of state only looks at overall county-level data, the percentages in certain counties are skewed.
For example, only a very small corner of Talladega County falls into the 6th District, with the rest sitting in the 3rd District. That can partially explain the county’s voter participation rate of 3.35%.
But other counties that sit entirely within a district holding an election had even lower turnout.
Sumter County on Alabama’s western border had the state’s lowest participation, a turnout of 1.18%. Only 106 voters out of the 8,971 registered cast a ballot across the county’s nine precincts.
Macon County also sat at the bottom with a voter participation rate lower than 2%. Just 252 votes were cast in a county with 15,016 registered voters for a turnout of 1.68%.
The three biggest urban counties holding elections fell somewhere in the middle of the pack. Jefferson County had a turnout of 3.44%, Mobile County reached 5.02% and Montgomery won the urban field with 5.31%, just over the statewide average.
The highest voter turnout for the special congressional primary was in a county that seems to have become a breeding ground for Alabama elected officials.
The county of origin of U.S. Sen. Katie Britt and GOP Senate nominee Barry Moore and the current residence of AL-2 GOP primary winner Rhett Marques, Coffee County had a voter turnout rate of 10.56%, more than double the state’s average.
Dale and Coosa Counties followed Coffee with turnouts of 9.25% and 9.21%, respectively.
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