Alabama voter registration climbs, but turnout lags rest of nation
by Ralph Chapoco, Alabama Reflector September 15, 2023 This article is part of U.S. Democracy Day, a nationwide collaborative on Sept. 15, the International Day of Democracy, in which news organizations cover how democracy works and the threats it faces. To learn more, visit usdemocracyday.org. While Alabama has enjoyed record numbers in terms of people registering to vote, voter rights groups point to troubling signs despite those figures for voters gaining access to the ballot box to exercise their constitutional right as citizens. Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen and his predecessor, John Merrill, have pointed to a 32% increase in voter registration in the last decade as a sign of greater interest in the process. But election turnout has lagged other states, even in presidential election years. More than 2.3 million Alabamians cast ballots in the 2020 presidential election. In terms of volume, that was a record, but it only represented 62% of Alabama voters casting votes, one of the lowest presidential turnouts in 30 years. “One of the things that we have seen, we are still seeing, is low turnout,” said Kathy Jones, president of the League of Women Voters of Alabama. “Presidential elections get high turnout, but in the elections at the local level, and during the midterms, you see pretty sad turnout. That is not good for democracy.” The reasons for the disparities have to do with culture, state laws that impede access to the ballot, and a lack of competitive elections. Allen and Merrill have turned to the public airwaves to claim credit for the number of active, and registered voters in Alabama. The state has steadily increased that number, going from about 2.8 million about a decade ago to roughly 3.3 million at the end of 2022. Through the end of August, the state’s voter rolls increased by an additional 30,000 people. Richard Fording, a professor of political science at the University of Alabama, said “the numbers aren’t bad.” But relatively few Alabamians exercise their right to vote, a continuation of a longstanding problem that has plagued the state for decades. According to data compiled by Michael McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida, only 37.3% of eligible voters turned out for the November 2022 elections, the fifth-worst in the United States. Mississippi, another southern state, fared the worst at 32.5%. Tennessee, West Virginia, and Indiana were the only other states with lower turnout than Alabama. The issue starts with the state’s history. “Alabama was classified as a state with a traditionalistic political culture,” Fording said. “That means a few different things, but with respect to the orientation of government participation, it is an elitist orientation.” That culture emerged from a backdrop of slavery, segregation, and disenfranchisement of large swathes of voters, mostly Blacks but also poor whites. Elites in the state maintained the status quo through literacy tests, poll taxes, and other discriminatory voting practices. Though those have been outlawed, their impact on the state’s political culture remains. “When there is a system that is the status quo, those who benefit from it want to rationalize that system, as being just,” Fording said. “And if they have the power to do that through various channels of socialization like the education system, then that is likely to become embedded somewhat permanently in the culture.” Several crosscurrents have taken shape that stem from that history that have served to depress voter turnout. “We have started out way behind,” Fording said. “And so, it is just harder to finish first when starting last.” Foregone conclusions The low turnout is not tied to a party. In the 2006 elections, when Democrats controlled the state Legislature, voter participation was 36%. Some demographic trends may play a role. Education tends to correlate with voter participation, and Alabama has a smaller percentage of college graduates than the nation as a whole. Party strength can also influence turnout. “In a large sense, there is not a lot of democracy because it is a foregone conclusion that most of the outcomes are going to be Republican,” said Thomas Shaw, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice at the University of South Alabama. The state is solid red, with the Republicans holding the governor’s office, all statewide elected positions, and the state Legislature. Democrats, once the dominant party in the state, have held onto power in the Black Belt and the state’s cities. But the state has not voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since 1976, and Democrats have won only one statewide election (the 2017 special election for U.S. Senate) since 2010. That can depress turnout. It also makes candidate recruitment difficult. The Democrats’ statewide candidates in 2022 were mostly inexperienced and underfunded. That depressed turnout to the point that normally safe Democratic legislative districts saw closer-than-expected races. “The people they put on the ballot in 2022 were no-name nobodies who got some of the least amount of support in the entire history of Democratic politics in Alabama,” said David Hughes, an associate professor of political science at Auburn University Montgomery. The state party is embroiled in a fight over its bylaws and leadership. Leaders of the party voted in May to disband three diversity caucuses and adopt new bylaws, replacing a set adopted in 2019 amid a Democratic National Committee (DNC) investigation. The DNC is investigating the May meeting. “I don’t think anybody would look at the state Democratic Party and say that it is functional,” Hughes said. All of that weighs on turnout, said Shaw. “If it is a presidential election, and you are a Democrat in Alabama, you know there is no chance that your candidate is going to get elected in Alabama; how does that make you feel about going to the polls,” he said. “It makes you feel like, ‘Why should I bother?’” Ballot access Legislators in recent years have also taken to making voting more difficult. Alabama does not have early voting or no-excuse absentee voting. The
