Remote voting surges in Cullman, statewide

Published 6:00 am Thursday, October 8, 2020

Relaxed absentee voting rules in response to public health concerns has led to a surge in the number of voters taking advantage of casting their ballots from a distance this year, both in Cullman County and statewide. 

With just less than a month to go before the Nov. 3 general election, Alabama has seen a marked increase in the number of people requesting and returning absentee ballots, and Cullman County is no exception. Local absentee requests just eclipsed the number of all absentee votes cast in Cullman County during the last presidential election, and there’re still four weeks for that total to climb further.

The Cullman County Circuit Clerk’s office said Tuesday that it has processed 1,325 absentee ballots for the general election, eclipsing the final absentee tally of 1,306 votes cast locally in the 2016 race. “We are averaging about 75 to100 ballots each day, which includes walk-in & mail-in voting,” said Circuit Clerk Lisa McSwain. 

Other Alabama counties also are reporting record numbers of absentee ballots a month ahead of election day, and officials in county offices say they’re taking steps to cope with a flood of mail-in votes that’s likely to continue for weeks during the pandemic.

The Alabama Secretary of State’s office has supplied Cullman County with two additional staff members whose job it is to help process the added workload. In Walker County, Circuit Clerk Susan Odom obtained permission from the state to use two additional poll workers and have two tabulation machines — instead of one — to handle absentee ballots she estimated could run into the thousands.

As of Sept. 23, at a time in an election year when her office usually hadn’t received any absentees ballots yet, Odom’s office already had received nearly 260 completed ballots and mailed 640 to would-be voters, the Daily Mountain Eagle reported.

In Lee County, Probate Judge Bill English told county commissioners last week that the county already had broken the old record for absentee voting. As many as 10 people per day are working into the evening to keep up with the push, which can cause lines over an hour long some days for people showing up at the courthouse to cast an absentee ballot, the Opelika-Auburn News quoted absentee office manager James Majors as saying.

With about 160,000 cases of COVID-19 confirmed in the state and more than 2,550 deaths from the illness caused by the new coronavirus, Alabama officials said about 120,000 voters had requested absentee ballots as of Friday and more than 53,000 already had been returned.

More than 2.1 million people voted in the presidential election four years ago in Alabama, and officials expect hundreds of thousands more this year for the race between President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden. The state has added the coronavirus pandemic as a legal reason for voting absentee. 

To help cope with the flood of mail-in ballots, Gov. Kay Ivey last week said county offices could begin counting absentee ballots at 7 a.m. on election day rather than waiting until after polls close 12 hours later.

The extra time could help speed up election returns, and it could be needed in places including Montgomery County, where election officials said they mailed more than 8,000 absentee ballots in a month, compared to 5,000 in the 55 days before the 2016 election. 

“We are busy. Very busy,” said Gina Ishman, the county circuit clerk and absentee election manager, told the Montgomery Advertiser. “That just tells you that voters are concerned about going to the polls on Election Day.”

Oct. 19 is the cutoff day to register to vote ahead of the Nov. 3 election. Voters can request absentee ballots as late as five days before the election, with Oct. 29 the last day to do so. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.