Slightly more Cullman County voters went to the polls for this week’s midterm party primary than in the midterm cycle four years ago, even as the overall county turnout percentage dipped significantly from 2018 to 2022.

How can that be? Because the county has thousands more registered voters than it did four years ago, even as the core active voting bloc among their number presumably has remained a constant and reliable driver of turnout.

Using data provided by the Cullman County Probate Office, 62,584 people in Cullman County were registered to vote in this year’s May 24 primary — up from 57,171 local registered voters at the time of the 2018 primary. Though both elections fell in midterm presidential years, each featured a slate of high-profile federal and state races, including the Alabama governor’s race.

Remarkably, though, there’s far less parity when it comes to the actual number of registered voters who cast local ballots in both the 2018 and 2022 primaries. In 2018, 17,815 Cullman County residents of all political party affiliations voted in the primary; this year, that number increased to 17,892 — a scant margin of 77 additional votes.

The four-year increase in the number of registered voters is reflected in the two elections’ overall turnout percentages. In 2018, local turnout across all primary voters rang in at 31.16 percent. and even though the actual number of ballots cast rose in this year’s primary, the turnout percentage dipped to 28.59, thanks to the surge in the number of registered voters across Cullman County as a whole.

Probate officials speculate that the four-year jump in local registered voters — a margin of 5,413 additional people — is a result of recent initiatives guided by the Alabama Secretary of State to sign more eligible people up. Chief among those is the office’s focus on closer compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (aka the “Motor Voter” Act), which affords residents nationwide the opportunity to register to vote at the same time they obtain a new or renewed driver’s license.

If Alabama is considered a safe Republican state for national elections, then Cullman is among the counties that appears to be trending even farther to the right. In the 2018 primary, 1,261 local voters requested a Democratic Party primary ballot. This year, that number took an approximate 69-percent plunge, with only 385 Democratic ballots cast locally.

The upcoming June 21 runoff election is headlined statewide by the two-person GOP race for the U.S. Senate, which pits primary frontrunner Katie Britt (R-Montgomery) against second-place finisher Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville). But there’s also a local GOP race still to be decided: the race for the District 4 seat on the Cullman County Commission. The two remaining candidates from the race’s initial field of five include primary frontrunner Corey Freeman, who garnered 5,078 primary votes (35.08 percent); and second-place finisher Kristi Creel Bain, who earned 3,592 votes (24.82 percent).