Polls Open 7 a.m. Tuesday in Alabama’s District 1 Special Primary: Where to Vote in Baldwin County

ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — Voters across coastal Alabama head to the polls Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026, for a special congressional primary that will shape representation for Mobile, Baldwin and Escambia counties. Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. Alabama does not offer in-person early voting, which makes Tuesday the day. For voters in Baldwin County especially, the election arrives in the middle of summer routines — beach season, vacation schedules and the first days of the school calendar — which makes knowing where to vote and what to bring more consequential than it might be in a November general.

Why There Is a Special Election at All

The Alabama Legislature redrew Congressional Districts 1 and 7 in May 2026, and the redraw triggered special elections in both. Special elections of this kind exist to fill or reconstitute representation outside the normal federal election calendar, and they move on their own compressed schedule set by the governor and state election officials rather than by the national cycle. For voters, the practical effect is an election that arrives with little of the advertising and saturation coverage that accompanies a regular primary, and a ballot that can be decided by a much smaller slice of the electorate.

District 1 covers Mobile, Baldwin and Escambia counties, a stretch of south Alabama that runs from the Mississippi line to the Florida line and includes Mobile’s urban core, the Eastern Shore, and the resort communities of the Baldwin County coast. District 7 sits outside the South Alabama coverage area and takes in Washington, Clarke, Monroe and Conecuh counties, extending the story of this redraw into the Black Belt and southwest Alabama’s rural counties. Residents of those counties are voting in the same special primary cycle even though the two districts center on very different communities.

Who Is on the District 1 Ballot

Four Republicans are competing for the party’s nomination in District 1: realtor Lucas Burger, former congressman Jerry Carl, retired military pilot John Mills and Fairhope businessman Austin Sidwell. The field pairs a former officeholder with candidates drawing on business, military and real estate backgrounds, giving Republican primary voters a genuine choice of experience and emphasis. Because District 1 has been reliably Republican in recent cycles, the winner of Tuesday’s primary will hold a strong position heading into the general election, which is why the August contest deserves most of the attention.

Democrat Clyde Jones is unopposed on the District 1 ballot, meaning Democratic voters will not see a contested congressional primary in this race. Those voters can still participate Tuesday in the primary election itself, and they will see Jones advance automatically to face the Republican nominee in the general election. Unopposed primaries are common in districts where one party holds a durable advantage, but they mean one side of the electorate effectively makes its decision months earlier than the other.

District 7, For Those Just Outside the Area

In District 7, Ammie Akin faces David Perry in the Republican special primary. Democrat Terri Sewell is running unopposed. Voters in Washington, Clarke, Monroe and Conecuh counties — including readers just over the line from the South Alabama coverage area — should check their sample ballots carefully, because the redraw means some voters who previously sat outside District 7’s boundaries now find themselves within it, and vice versa. The same 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. polling hours and photo ID requirements apply across both districts.

What to Bring

Alabama requires a valid photo ID to cast a ballot. Accepted forms include an Alabama driver’s license or non-driver ID, a photo voter ID issued by the state, a U.S. passport, a federal or state employee ID, a student or employee ID from an Alabama college or university, a military ID and a tribal ID. Voters who arrive without photo ID are not turned away entirely, but they may be required to cast a provisional ballot, and election officials have several days afterward to verify identity before those ballots count — an avoidable complication for anyone who plans ahead.

Voters unsure of their assigned polling place can look it up through the Alabama Secretary of State’s Alabama Votes website, and it is worth checking a sample ballot ahead of time to confirm exactly which races appear in a given precinct — redistricting means some voters are in a different district than they were two years ago. Polling places themselves can also shift between elections, particularly for special elections held outside the normal cycle, so confirming the location rather than relying on memory is the safest approach. Absentee voting remains available to Alabama voters who qualify under state law, but for everyone else the only day to cast a ballot is Tuesday.

Baldwin County Polling Locations by City

In Orange Beach, voters will cast ballots at the Orange Beach Event Center at The Wharf, 4671 Wharf Parkway, and at The Harriett Cockrell Center on Ono Island, 31692 Dolphin Drive.

Gulf Shores voters are assigned among five locations: the Gulf Shores Meyer Civic Center at 1930 West 2nd Street; the Fort Morgan Volunteer Fire Department No. 1 at 12105 State Highway 180 West; the Gulf Shores Cultural Center at 19470 Oak Road West; St. Andrew by the Sea Church at 17263 Fort Morgan Road; and Our Lady of the Gulf Catholic Church at 308 East 22nd Avenue.

Foley has five polling locations as well: St. Margaret of Scotland Parish Church at 601 West Laurel Avenue; the Foley Civic Center at 407 East Laurel Avenue; Foley United Methodist Church at 915 North Pine Street; Calvary Chapel Fellowship of Foley Church at 18464 Underwood Road; and Daystar Church at 21170 Brinks Willis Road.

In Elberta, voting takes place at the Perdido Beach Volunteer Fire Department at 8450 Escambia Avenue, the Elberta Civic Center at 25070 Pine Street, and the Josephine Volunteer Fire Department at 6824 County Road 95.

Lillian voters will cast ballots at the Lillian Community Club, 34148 Widell Avenue. Together the Baldwin County locations span the county from Fort Morgan and Ono Island to the northern edges of Elberta and Lillian, so voters along the coast’s fast-growing corridors should confirm their precinct rather than assuming the nearest civic building is their assigned site.

Residents of Mobile and Escambia counties will vote at their own assigned precincts, which are likewise listed through the Alabama Votes lookup tool. Because District 1 spans all three counties, the same ballot will look similar whether it is cast at a Gulf Shores civic center or a Mobile precinct, but polling locations are not interchangeable across county lines — a voter’s registration address determines both precinct and ballot.

A Reminder About Timing

Because this is a special primary held in the middle of August, turnout is typically far lower than in a general election cycle. Special elections lack the civic drumbeat that surrounds November voting — no presidential race at the top, no saturation advertising, and little of the social pressure that comes when an entire community is voting on the same day. In a district where the eventual Republican nominee is widely expected to be favored in November, a comparatively small number of ballots may effectively settle the seat. That reality cuts in both directions: it means each individual vote carries more weight, and it means campaigns focus their energy on identifying reliable primary voters rather than persuading the full electorate.

Voters who are traveling, working long shifts or juggling the first week of school should plan around the 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. window rather than assuming a second chance later in the month. The primary’s single-day format rewards planning: early morning and evening hours tend to be busiest, midday is often quieter, and voters who know their precinct before leaving home spend less time hunting for parking or the right table. August also brings afternoon thunderstorms to the Alabama coast, and while polls stay open regardless of weather, an unplanned detour on election day is easier to absorb when the polling place is already confirmed.

For Baldwin County, the election is a moment of outsized local relevance. The district’s redraw placed the county’s beach communities and fast-growing interior squarely inside District 1, and the four-way Republican primary gives coastal voters their most direct say in choosing a nominee of any election this cycle. Turnout in places like Orange Beach, Gulf Shores and Foley — where summer populations swell with visitors who vote elsewhere — will shape which communities’ preferences dominate the final tally.

The schedule after Tuesday follows Alabama’s standard special-election machinery: the primary’s winners advance to a general election in November, where the District 1 nominee will face the unopposed Democratic primary winner. Between now and then, voters have one job, and it comes Tuesday. The polling places are listed, the hours are set, the photo ID requirement is unchanged, and the sample ballots are available online. The rest is up to the voters of coastal Alabama.