Republican ballot numbers drop, Democratic ballot numbers increase as voter turnout declines

Though a majority of ballots cast in the June 16 Republican primary runoff were for Republicans, the party saw a decrease in the number of ballots cast while Democratic ballots increased.

According to the Alabama Secretary of State’s office, 310,000 (77%) Republican ballots were cast in last week’s election. That is down from the 2022 midterm runoff when 425,779 (88%) Republican ballots were cast.

Voter turnout for the runoff has always trailed behind the primary. The Secretary of State’s office reported a 10.72% voter turnout for this year’s runoff. That’s down from the 12.8% voter turnout in 2022 and just over half of the turnout seen during the May primary.

A message seeking comment were left with the Alabama Republican Party Thursday.

Tabitha Isner, vice-chair of the Alabama Democratic Party, said in an interview Friday morning the increase in north Alabama counties including Morgan, Madison and Limestone counties is because of additional races on the ballot.

“The 5th Congressional District race was really important in that area, and that runoff meant a lot to people, but I also think it just speaks to a general trend towards north Alabama seeing that shift in a bluer direction,” she said.

The only statewide runoff for both major parties during last week’s runoff was the U.S. Senate race featuring U.S. Rep. Barry Moore, R-Enterprise, who bested former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson in the Republican race and attorney Everett Wess who beat small business owner Dakarai Larriett on the Democratic side.

While the 92,000 Democratic ballots cast in this year’s election is up from the 60,500 cast in 2022, the number still lagged far behind what Republicans saw in this year’s election.

Macon County saw the largest increase in Democratic voter turnout jumping from 895 ballots in 2022 to 2,423 in last week’s election. Fred Gray Jr., chair of the Macon County Democratic Party, said in an interview Thursday that the increase comes from engaging with voters and several local races.

“We had a robust election cycle locally, and all of the races I think all were contested, and so that gave people throughout the county a reason to vote, because still to a large extent all politics is local,” he said.

One of the ways Gray said Macon County engaged voters was through forums across the county to increase voter awareness.

Other Democratic leaning counties including Dallas County saw a decrease in the number of Democratic ballots that were cast in the runoff election.

Dallas County went from 6,300 Democratic ballots cast in 2022 to just over 2,000 votes in last week’s runoff. Collins Pettaway, chair of the Dallas County Democratic Party, said in an interview Thursday the lack of races with recognizable candidates on the Democratic ballot hurt turnout.

“A lot of times in smaller communities, people, they vote by familiarity, and so they’ll remember to go vote at the polls when they can remember who the person is,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s very hard to get people to go out to vote when they don’t know who you are.”

Some Republican leaning counties saw a more significant drop in turnout than others. The number of Republican ballots in Bibb County went from 3,100 in 2022 down to 1,700 in this year’s runoff. 

Clay and Pickens counties also saw a decrease in GOP Ballots cast. In Clay County, Republican ballots went from 2,660 in 2022 to just over 1,200 in the June runoff while in Pickens County, the number of Republican ballots fell from 3,300 in 2022 to almost 1,400 last week.

Bob Cusanelli, chair of the Pickens County Republican Party, said in an interview Thursday that the turnout was low in his county because no local election was on the ballot.

“Unless there’s a local race, they really don’t get interested in a lot of things,” he said.

Messages seeking comment were left with the Bibb County and Clay County Republican Party.

While most Republican counties saw a decrease, Washington County saw a significant increase in Republican ballots cast going from 1,575 GOP ballots in 2022 to 2,769 in last week’s election. 

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Washington County has a population of 15,388. The Alabama Secretary of State’s office reports 13,485 residents in the county are registered voters.

“We’re a very small county, so a small portion of our vote not showing up is a big difference for us,” said Willie Long, Jr., chair of the Washington County Republican Party. “Some of the bigger counties and places, they are able to have several folks not show up and still have a significant number of people vote, so we have to really try to get as many folks as we can to the poll, just for us to make any kind of show, since we have such a small population in our county.”

Alabama Reflector is a nonprofit news agency based in Montgomery.