With courthouse closed, absentee runoff voting limited to mail only

Published 5:00 pm Wednesday, March 18, 2020

As long the Cullman County Courthouse remains closed as a precautionary response to the COVID-19 coronavirus, would-be voters planning to cast an absentee ballot in the July 14 runoff election won’t be able to request (or deliver) their ballot in person.

That means ballots will instead have to requested and returned by mail, and that’s exactly the guidance that the Alabama Secretary of State’s office is giving to election officials in Cullman and other counties where courthouse doors have temporarily been shuttered to everyone but employees.

Cullman County Circuit Clerk Lisa McSwain said Wednesday that her office now has absentee ballots for the July 14 runoff ready and available to send by mail, and the secretary of state has advised election coordinators to offer the ballots by mail exclusively until courthouses locally and throughout the state reopen to the public.

“Until they change the current protocol so that the courthouse is once again open to the public, people will need to call the clerk’s office at 256-775-4654 and request their absentee application through the mail,” said McSwain. “They also can go to the secretary of state’s website to make the same request, and we will mail them their ballot.”

Once completed, ballots can be mailed back to the clerk’s office at any time up until the July 9 cutoff date ahead of the runoff election, said McSwain. “People will have until July 9 to vote by absentee ballot — but we have to receive the ballots back in the mail by noon on election day,” she explained. “If the office opens to the public again, we also will be able to accept them once again in person, but for now it’s mail-only. But whether by mail or in person, absentee ballots must be delivered to our office by noon on election day.”

The postponement of the runoff from March 31 to July 14 significantly widens voters’ window of time to request their absentee ballots and mail them back, said McSwain.

“In a way, it’s actually better, because with the March 31 election, we’d only have had eight more days to receive everything,” she explained. “This way, there’s a lot more time for everyone to get their ballot back to us. We had a lot of people request absentee ballots for the runoff, back when we held the primary election earlier this month, and we’ve already been really busy processing those. The postponed runoff will give everyone more than two months of additional time to get their absentee ballots in.”

Absentee ballots for Cullman County voters can be requested by mailing Lisa McSwain, Absentee Election Manager, Cullman County Courthouse, 500 2nd Ave. SW, Room #303 Cullman, AL 35055.

For more information on requesting an absentee ballot in the July 14 primary runoff election, visit the secretary of state’s voter page at www.sos.alabama.gov/alabama-votes.