I took a week off of politics to talk about baseball and Mississippi State got eliminated from the College World Series so I've swapped my Bulldog hat for a Hog hat as Arkansas tries to bring the SEC another national championship. I watched the Hogs beat Oregon State Tuesday night and hopefully I watched them clinch the crown last night. If not, I'll be back Thursday for the rubber game.
But, back to politics. Escambia County Circuit Clerk John Robert Fountain finally got the absentee ballot for the July 17 Republican Party runoff. So, if you want to vote absentee, send in your application and you'll get a ballot in the mail. If you are not registered to vote, you have until July 2 to do so for the runoff.
Now we'll have another Civics 101 lesson. In Escambia County there are no runoffs on the Democratic ticket. So, if you were one of the 1,794 people who voted in the Democratic Primary on June 5, you will not be allowed to vote in the upcoming Republican runoff. If you did not vote in the June primary, you will be allowed to vote in the runoff.
The new 'cross-over' law was passed by the Alabama Legislature and was first put into place during the special election for the U.S. Senate, eventually won by Democrat Doug Jones.
If the poll workers did their job (which I expect they did) in June, when you voted your name was either tagged with a 'D' or a 'R'. That list will be used on July 17. If you have a 'D' by your name you cannot 'legally' vote.
I say 'legally' vote because you will be able to cast a ballot if you insist. It just might not be counted.
As an example, if you voted in the Republican Primary but somehow you got a 'D' put by your name, the poll worker will first say you are not eligible. But you will be allowed to vote a provisional ballot. If election officials determine you did vote in the Republican Primary, your vote will count. If they determine you voted in the Democratic Primary, your vote won't count.
Let's say you voted in the Democratic Primary but you still want to vote in the Republican runoff. You'll be given a provisional ballot and it will hit File 13 once election officials determine you voted as a Democrat.
The same goes with absentee ballots. If you voted in the Democratic Primary, you will not get a ballot for the Republican runoff.
Fountain also told me that if you voted absentee in the Republican Primary and checked the box saying you wanted an absentee ballot for the runoff you will get one automatically mailed to you. If you did not check that box, you will have to make a new application.
It sounds confusing, but it really isn't. What we did in June and what we do in July doesn't elect anybody to any public office. It's a nominating process by the Republican and Democratic parties to select their candidates to be on the November General Election ballot.
Republicans don't want Democrats meddling in their affairs and Democrats don't want Republicans meddling in their affairs. Then there are people like me and a lot others that don't totally align themselves with a political party. We vote for the person, not the party.
Some don't. I've said this before but I believe a 'Die Hard Republican' or a 'Yellow Dog Democrat' would vote for Hitler over Jesus if Hitler was their party's nominee.
But people like me have to choose a primary to vote in. I wait until I see the ballot and then I decide whether I'm voting in the Republican or Democratic primary. I voted in the Republican Primary in June because I wanted to cast a ballot for Lyn Stuart. That gives me the right to vote in the Republican runoff. Come November I'll vote for some Democrats and some Republicans.
I had a teacher explain it years ago when I was in high school. Let's say the churches in Escambia County were trying to form a group to jointly make decisions on outreach programs such as food banks or disaster relief. Each denomination gets to send one representative to this committee. So, the Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Church's of Christ, Pentecostals and others hold their own elections to select their representative to this committee.
The Baptists don't want the Catholics to have a vote in who the Baptist send to the committee and the Catholics don't want the Baptists to have a vote in who they send to the committee. The Episcopalians don't want the Presbyterians casting ballots in their election and Presbyterians don't want the Methodists voting in their election to send a delegate.
I personally feel political parties are outdated and new to be abandoned, especially on the local level. But we must follow the current rules and laws and the current law is if you voted in the Democratic Primary, you can't vote on July 17.
