A federal appellate court has refused to allow Alabama’s secretary of state to stand in the way of curbside voting in the July 14 runoff and other measures designed to ease voting for people wary of the coronavirus. Read more.
When Jeff Sessions arrived at Woodlawn High School for a Wednesday morning press conference, Dr. Terrell E. Brown, the school’s principal, was waiting for him in the parking lot. The press conference couldn’t be held on school grounds, he said — but Sessions was welcome to move to a parking lot across the street. Sessions’ campaign staffers begrudgingly acquiesced. “Well, that’ll make it part of the story,” one staffer muttered as they lugged the podium across the busy street. The former U.S. attorney general and current U.S. Senate candidate was in Woodlawn to express his outrage over recent decisions by the Birmingham Board of Education and the Birmingham Housing Authority to cut ties with Church of the Highlands after founding pastor Chris Hodges “liked” several social media posts by the politically conservative group Turning Point USA. “This is a matter of real importance,” Sessions said. “It deals concretely with the right of free speech and free expression of religious values and to be able to have independent ideas outside your work environment." Read more.
Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill said the state is prepared for the July 14 primary runoffs and he does not foresee problems here like the ones that happened during Georgia’s voting Tuesday. Merrill said all of the state’s 1,980 poll sites will be open for next month’s primary runoff elections. He said he knows of no shortage of poll workers, and he has asked all election officials in the state to let him know if there is a shortage. The issue of whether enough poll workers would be available to work on this election arose because of the coronavirus pandemic. Most poll workers are retired, election officials say, and people over 65 are more susceptible to the virus. Read more.
The coronavirus pandemic has spurred a new wave of legal challenges to Alabama’s voting laws, particularly its absentee ballot requirements. The League of Women Voters of Alabama is the latest group to file a lawsuit against the state claiming its voting rules are too restrictive. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Montgomery County Circuit Court, urges state officials to expand absentee ballot access during the November general election. Read more.
Polling places in Jefferson County could be in line to receive more money to host elections, according to a report from Barry Stephenson, chairman of the Jefferson County Board of Registrars. Speaking at Thursday’s meeting of the Jefferson County Commission, Stephenson said that the county last increased the rent offered to sites that host polling places in October 2018. That took the rent from $25 to $100. The registrar said an increase in rent this year would be a sign of goodwill. When asked, Stephenson said the rent could be raised to $250 for each of the county’s 175 polling places; he said only 60 polling places actually accept rent. Read more.
A stinging rebuke by President Donald Trump, plus Trump’s endorsement of his election opponent, has left former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions scampering to stay alive in the Republican Senate primary runoff race — and prompting Sessions to write an open letter to Alabama voters, explaining many of his actions while serving as the head of the Department of Justice. Sessions released his letter on Tuesday morning through his campaign website and in emails to the news media, in which he reiterated his support of Trump’s policies and again explained his decision to recuse himself from the investigation of the Trump campaign and allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Read more.
Following are lists of contributors of $5,000 and up to U.S. Senate candidates. Sen. Doug Jones, a Democrat, faced no opposition from within his party and will be on the Nov. 3 general election ballot. Jeff Sessions and Tommy Tuberville are candidates for the Republican nomination for the Senate seat, and the winner of their July 14 GOP primary runoff will face Jones in the fall election. Read more.
Tommy Tuberville and Jeff Sessions have been running almost dollar-for-dollar in recent weeks as they raise cash for their campaigns for the Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate, according to reports they filed this week with the Federal Elections Commission.
Tuberville, a former Auburn University football coach, narrowly led a field of seven candidates in the GOP primary on March 3. He will meet Sessions, who held the Senate seat for almost two decades until he resigned in early 2017 to become President Donald Trump’s first attorney general, in a runoff on July 14. Read more.
See the lists of contributors in the U.S. Senate race.
The outbreak of the new coronavirus has drastically altered the campaigns for Alabama's runoff elections. Originally scheduled for March 31, runoffs for the Republican races for Congress and U.S. Senate are now postponed until July 14. The pandemic and its total consumption of the news cycle have also shifted the narrative for candidates. Former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who is running for his former seat in the U.S. Senate, has capitalized on the situation to take an aggressive position against China and highlight his foreign policy bonafides. In the runoff, Sessions faces former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville, who won 33% of the vote to Sessions' 32% in the March 3 primary election. Todd Stacy of Alabama Daily News interviewed Sessions and talked about his campaign and the issues he is discussing. Read more.
MONTGOMERY— Alabama political campaigns that were set for primary runoff elections on March 31 have to now adjust their strategies after Gov. Kay Ivey moved the election date to July 14 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Ivey on Wednesday said delaying the election was the best way to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 virus while also allowing people to exercise their right to vote. “The ability to hold free and fair elections is an inherent right as citizens of the United States and the great state of Alabama, but the safety and well-being of Alabama citizens is paramount,” Ivey said. The decision greatly changes the political landscape in an already heated campaign season. Read more.
