2024 Election

Alabama Ranks 46th in Ease of Voting: PARCA Report

PARCA

UPDATED — Alabama trails the nation in terms of convenience and access to the ballot — ranking 46th in ease of voting — according to a recent report released by the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama.

PARCA found that reasons for the state’s high cost for voting include a lack of early in-person voting, restrictive absentee voting requirements and a lack of automatic voter registration.

“Alabama has not adopted measures other states have to encourage citizen participation in our democratic process,” said Thomas Spencer, PARCA’s senior research associate and the author of the report. “The vast majority of states allow people to vote early in person or by absentee if they choose to.” (Read the full report.)

Other key findings of the report include:

  • Alabama is one of 22 states that lack direct democracy mechanisms such as initiatives and referendums.
  • Alabama is one of 17 states that either prohibit or do not use ballot drop boxes.
  • Alabama is one of 14 states that restrict access to vote absentee, such as to those who are physically incapacitated.
  • Alabama doesn’t offer automatic voter registration, something 24 states do.
  • Alabama ranked 46th for voter turnout in the 2022 election, with 37%. In the 2020 election, it ranked 39th with 61% turnout.
  • Alabama does allow online voter registration, something eight states don’t.
  • Alabama’s voter registration deadline, 15 days before the election, is closer to the election than in 24 states, whose deadlines range between 20 and 30 days before the election. However, 19 states and Washington, D.C., have voter registration available on Election Day.

PARCA officials acknowledge that ballot security is important and should be protected, but they say making it easier to cast a ballot should also be a priority.

“We all know Alabama had a history of discriminatory voting restrictions,” Spencer said. “We should be a national leader in access and voter participation.”

PARCA’s report also states that a major factor in Alabama’s low voter turnout is the lack of competition between the two major political parties.

Richard Fording, a political science professor at the University of Alabama, said in an email that the state’s elections fail to generate interest among voters because the outcome is a foregone conclusion in the minds of most voters.

“In addition, candidates have far less incentive to invest money in voter mobilization because it is unlikely that this will have a significant impact on the outcome,” he said. “Unfortunately, little can be done about this problem, at least in the short term. There is really no fix for statewide elections without a major increase in support for the Democratic party in Alabama.”

Fording said reforms to increase voter participation are unlikely to pass unless Democrats regain control of state government because it’s widely believed that such legislation would increase turnout among Democrats more than Republicans.

“Despite the stated claim by Republicans that they oppose these reforms due to the threat to election security, there is no question that their opposition is driven by the belief that Democratic candidates would benefit the most from laws that increase turnout.” he said. “It is also probably true that Democrats often support these laws because they believe increasing turnout would benefit Democratic candidates.

“However, what really matters here is how these laws affect the democratic performance of our political system. Alabama’s election laws suppress turnout and do so in a way that has a disproportionate effect on low-income and minority voters. This is inconsistent with the most basic principles of a healthy representative democracy, and for this reason, both Republicans and Democrats should be concerned about this.”

PARCA’s report is an installment of the group’s yearlong series on the unfinished work of reforming Alabama’s Constitution. The series is supported, in part, by the Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform Foundation.

The foundation formed in 2000 to advocate for the revision of Alabama’s 1901 Constitution, which aimed to disenfranchise Black people and poor white people and to centralize power in the Legislature.

In 2022, Alabama adopted a new constitution that removed the racist language as well as other unconstitutional provisions. PARCA officials say that while the new document is better organized, it is still filled with complex and contradictory language.

“It is not a basic template and statement of principles, which should be the ideal,” Spencer wrote in February. “It more closely resembles a law code, with almost 500 pages worth of amendments that relate to localities rather than to the state as a whole.”