Category: 2016 General Election
Homewood Senior Citizens Center
At the Polls
BirminghamWatch, in partnership with ProPublica’s Electionland project, is keeping track of activities at the polls today. If you have a tip about issues at the polls, you can text ELECTIONLAND to 69866. Or you can notify BirminghamWatch directly by emailing vmartin@bellsouth.net or calling 205-595-2402, and a reporter will check out your tip.
7:00 p.m. Polls just closed in Alabama, and several polling places reported they had lines of voters still waiting to vote. Under state law, the polls must remain open until all the voters who were in line at 7 p.m. cast their ballots.
4:24 p.m. The Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s Department is on the lookout this afternoon for people posting or handing out fliers that erroneously tell Democratic voters they cannot vote until Nov. 9. Read more.
2:30 p.m. After complaints from some voters who thought poll workers were rushing them, Jefferson County Probate Judge Alan King said there’s no set time limit for voters to cast their ballots, but he would not expect it to take more than about 12 minutes. Read more.
11:15 a.m. Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill retweeted a reminder that those voting a straight party ticket do not also have to vote for individual candidates. There has been confusion over that issue all morning.
10:26 a.m. Lines were beginning to die down at Homewood Senior Citizens Center after a hectic morning. Read more.
7:20 a.m. Voters at Hoover Fire Station No. 8 had to put their ballots in a locked box in a voting machine after the machine broke. Similar reports have been made from other polling places. Read more.
Long Lines Greet People Trying to Vote Early Today
Cameron Ydarraga turned 18 in September and has been looking forward to his first chance to vote. The John Carroll Catholic senior considered the candidates and he considered the amendments.
But the Hoover resident didn’t consider the incredibly long line in which he would have to stand at Hunter Street Baptist Church before casting his ballot.
Cameron wasn’t the only one taken aback by the crowd, which was “Way, way, way more than normal,” according to a poll worker who asked that his name not be used.
Voters at other polling places across the area also were facing long lines this morning. Read more.
Mail Delays Endanger Voting for More Than 100 Absentee Voters in Shelby County
More than 100 Shelby County voters who applied to vote absentee learned Monday that they could not because their applications had been delayed in the mail.
Shelby County Circuit Court Clerk Mary Harris said she received 122 applications for absentee ballots in the mail Monday. The problem is, the deadline for receiving those applications was Thursday.
The peculiar thing about those applications, Harris said, is that they were postmarked Monday, Oct. 31. Of those, 97 were from the metro Birmingham area, she said.
Harris spent Monday alerting people that their absentee ballots were not in the mail and that they must, if possible, go to their regular polling place to cast their ballots. Read more.
Calm Before a Storm? Election Workers Prepare for Alabama’s Biggest Voter Turnout
The ballots are stacked, pens gathered, poll workers trained and rolls of “I Voted” stickers ready to go.
Election workers this weekend were taking a “deep breath before the plunge,” as Barry Stephenson, chairman of the Jefferson County Board of Registrars, described it. They’ve been working seven days a week since Labor Day to prepare for what could be historic turnout at the polls, he said.
The state has topped 3.3 million registered voters, Secretary of State John Merrill said last week, surpassing the state’s highest registration by 584,252 registered voters.
Likewise, Jefferson County has set a record for registered voters, with 456,000. Before this, the record was 435,000 for the 2012 election, when 302,000 people voted in the county. Stephenson said the county is expecting more than 300,000 voters to show up at the polls Tuesday.
In preparation, the Jefferson County has increased the number of precincts and added an extra 150 poll workers, bringing the total number to 1,900. There will be more voter sign-in books at the polls in an attempt to avoid long lines, but Stephenson warned, “It still may not be a quick process.” Read more.
Know Before You Go: State, Local Offices and Issues on November 8 Ballot
For months the spotlight has been on the race for president. But voters on November 8 will also find a robust ballot of offices and issues closer to home. To be decided are an Alabama Senate seat and seats in Congress, presidency of the Alabama Public Service Commission and membership on state and local boards of education. County offices and a slate of amendments also will be decided, along with control of the state’s judicial system, from justices on the state’s Supreme Court, to district attorneys, to judges on the bench throughout the state.
BirminghamWatch – in partnership with Weld, WBHM, Starnes Publishing, B Metro, Trussville Tribune and the Birmingham Public Library – gives information on all of that in this Alabama Voter Guide. You’ll find sample ballots for Jefferson and Shelby counties, biographical information about candidates on each of those ballots and a rundown of the amendments you’ll be asked to decide. There is also a package of resources to help you navigate election day, from verifying your polling place and registration to researching the issues and the candidates more deeply.
There’s a lot to decide in one 12-hour window at the polls between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. on Tuesday, November 8. Read more at AlabamaVoterGuide.org.
