The truth about Alabama when voting in a general election for President of the United States:
The examples given here will be based on the 2020 election in order to explain the process.
The entire process begins with someone wanting to become a candidate for President.
From this initial desire to be a candidate, the entire process may get complex or seem difficult to follow, so please pay attention to every detail.
If someone wants to get nominated by either the Republican or Democratic Party in Alabama, this person has a deadline to file with the Secretary of State by November 8, 2019.
The Democratic Party and the Republic Party each have a fee that must be paid by someone for consideration to be nominated by the party. In order to become a candidate in Alabama for either of these parties, the paid fee gets confirmed by the State.
Each person wanting to be a candidate by either of these parties is required to get a total of 500 signatures from qualified State voters, or 50 signatures from each of the 7 districts for a total of 350 signatures.
A person wanting to be an Independent candidate has a filing deadline of August 13, 2020 and must get 5,000 signatures from qualified State voters.
The election that takes place in the Spring is known as the Primary Election. When there is to be an election for President of the United States, the election gets to be known by an extra title known as the “presidential preference primary”.
The votes that happen during this primary election with regard to Presidential candidates, is in one regard, to determine which candidate will appear on the ballot in the general election in November for the Democratic and Republican Party.
This primary election happened on March 3, 2020 in Alabama.
The election results are made available by the State as separate spreadsheets, having a total of 67 spreadsheets, one for each voting precinct.
Example of Primary Election Results
The type of primary that takes place in Alabama is known as an open primary. It may surprise you to learn that each State can have a different way of doing things as part of this entire process leading up to someone becoming President of the United States.
In general, but not always, states that do not ask voters to choose parties on the voter registration form are “open primary” states. In an open primary, voters may choose privately in which primary to vote. In other words, voters may choose which party’s ballot to vote, but this decision is private and does not register the voter with that party. This permits a voter to cast a vote across party lines for the primary election.
Let’s break this down for a complete understanding:
The primary election in Alabama is an open primary, so you don’t have to declare yourself to any one specific party to then be forced to vote among the candidates of this one party. You can vote freely during this primary election. However, the candidate receiving the highest number of votes for the Democratic and Republican Party will become the candidate on the ballot in November when registered voters will vote again.
The election that takes place in November is known as the general election.
Registered voters will “vote” in various ways…. absentee ballot, mail-in ballot, interacting with various types of machinery and/or technology to cast their votes for one or more elected positions.
When a person votes in Alabama for President and Vice President, this voter is also casting a vote for the electors who are associated with this particular candidate running for President and Vice President. The names of these so-called electors never appear on the ballot in Alabama and they are not required to appear.
Explanation:
All of the votes from the citizens who voted during the general election are counted to the best of the abilities of those involved in counting the votes. The homepage of this website mentions how it is not always possible to have a 100% accurate count of the votes.
If a Republican candidate receives the highest number of votes, then the Republican party within the State of Alabama gets to choose nine (9) individuals to serve as electors who then get to cast a specific vote in December known as the electoral vote.
If a Democratic candidate receives the highest number of votes, then the Democratic party within the State of Alabama gets to choose nine (9) individuals to serve as electors who then get to cast a specific vote in December known as the electoral vote.
If an independent candidate receives the highest number of votes, here’s what happens. When the independent candidate decided that he or she wanted to run for President, this candidate had to submit various things to each State in order to satisfy the so-called process to run for President. A list of individuals residing in the State who would agree to being an elector for this candidate are submitted to the State long before the actual day of the general election. If the independent candidate receives the highest number of votes within the State, the individuals that he or she submitted as being the electors are the individuals who then cast their electoral vote.
Here’s where it gets interesting:
Laws within each of the states are known as statutes. There are several statues that exist within Alabama that pertain to the election process for a person to become President of the United States. One of the statues contains the following language:
“I do hereby consent and do hereby agree to serve as elector for President and Vice President of the United States, if elected to that position, and do hereby agree that, if so elected, I shall cast my ballot as such elector for _____ for President and _____ for Vice President of the United States” (inserting in the blank spaces the respective names of the persons named as nominees for the respective offices in the certificate to which this statement is attached).”
What this law means is that each person casting their electoral vote in December (explained below) is agreeing to cast a vote for the associated party (Republican or Democrat) or independent candidate that selected them to be an elector in the first place.
Further explained:
Let’s say a Republican candidate receives the highest number of votes in the State from the citizens, the State Office of the Republican Party in Alabama would get to choose nine (9) people as electors who would then meet in December to cast nine (9) votes for the Republican candidate.
Since the Republican candidate received the highest number of votes in the State, all of the other votes would not matter at this point, because the Republican party will now be sending nine (9) individuals to cast an electoral vote for the Republican candidate, and it is this electoral vote that actually results in a person becoming President of the United States, not simply a count of all votes from every citizen across the entire United States of America (as mentioned on the home page of this website).
This other vote known as the electoral vote takes place on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December in each of the fifty (50) states. The time of day when the electors gather to conduct this vote may vary from state to state, but the electoral vote happens on the same day in every state, the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. Another interesting point to mention: this electoral vote is weeks after we the people have already cast a so-called vote.
In Alabama, these individuals chosen as electors are to meet at the Office of the Secretary of State at twelve o’clock noon on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December.
What happens to these electoral votes? Each state has a certain number of electoral votes associated with their state. There are a total of five-hundred and thirty-eight (538) electoral votes to be exact, and only a total of two-hundred and seventy (270) of these electoral votes are required to determine the person who will become President of the United States.
Knowing the number of electors associated with each of the States, it is mathematically possible to have only eleven (11) states determine who will become the President of the United States.
The following eleven states add up to the two-hundred and seventy (270) electoral votes needed to determine who becomes President of the United States:
California (55 electoral votes)
Texas (38 electoral votes)
New York (29 electoral votes)
Florida (29 electoral votes)
Illinois (20 electoral votes)
Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes)
Ohio (18 electoral votes)
Georgia (16 electoral votes)
Michigan (16 electoral votes)
North Carolina (15 electoral votes)
New Jersey (14 electoral votes)
This next fact may disappoint those of you who reside and vote in Alabama.
If these eleven (11) states end up having their electoral votes casted for the same candidate, the remaining thirty-nine (39) states would not matter at all. So… that vote you casted in the general election in November as a citizen… what was the purpose of your vote? The answer: NOTHING (when these eleven states have an electoral outcome as such) !!!
The time is NOW to understand that our country does not have a voting process in place whereby every citizen who wants to cast a vote is able to cast a vote and to then have his or her vote be accurately counted towards choosing the person who will become the next President of the United States.
