The Alabama League of Municipalities will not ask state lawmakers to postpone this year’s municipal elections for now, opting instead to wait and see how long Alabama’s COVID-19 restrictions last before deciding whether to seek a change in election dates that could affect races in Prichard, Fairhope, Daphne and dozens of other cities across the state.
The organization’s executive committee met Thursday morning and considered whether to lobby the Legislature to move the elections, which are scheduled for most Alabama cities on Aug. 25, to sometime in 2021. After discussion, the committee decided against taking any action immediately, according to ALM Deputy Director Greg Cochran, who briefed reporters afterward on a conference call.
Cochran said the committee will revisit the question in June, when it will have a clearer picture of whether the state remains under a shelter-in-place order tied to the coronavirus pandemic. If restrictions are still in place at that point, the league could pursue a change through two different paths.
“They’ll seek the change only if we’re still in this condition,” Cochran said. “If the conditions do not improve by June, we can seek to move the elections by petitioning Gov. Kay Ivey.”
Under Alabama law, Ivey would only have the authority to shift the election dates herself if the state remained under a declared state of emergency at that time, Cochran said. Absent that emergency declaration, the league would instead need to ask the Legislature to pass a bill authorizing the delay. Individual cities could also petition the governor separately for the same relief, he added.
Cochran said the committee is aiming to make a final call by June 12, a timeline that would put the decision after the Legislature wraps up its 2020 regular session, narrowing the path mostly to a request routed through the governor’s office.
The idea of delaying municipal elections gained traction after Ivey pushed back the state’s congressional runoff elections to July 14 because of the pandemic. That decision prompted league officials to start weighing whether a similar postponement might eventually be needed for city races, even though the executive committee ultimately decided it was premature to act.
“This came about after [Ivey] moved the runoff elections,” Cochran said. “We started to think about how we plan ahead in case we’re in this predicament into June. Most of the committee felt it was too early to change the dates at this time.”
If the committee does eventually vote to seek a postponement, Cochran said the league would present the governor with a menu of alternate dates and let her choose among them, rather than proposing a single fixed date.
A delay would not affect Mobile, since the city’s municipal elections are already scheduled for 2021. But it would directly affect this year’s races for Prichard’s City Council seats and mayor’s office, along with elections in Fairhope, Daphne and other municipalities across Baldwin County that are on the August ballot.
Not everyone welcomes the idea of pushing the elections back. Prichard District 1 City Councilman Lorenzo Martin has been among the most vocal critics of any potential delay, arguing it would infringe on residents’ right to choose their own leaders on schedule. Martin has helped organize a group called Alabama Citizens’ Right to Vote and said he has been contacting municipal officials throughout Mobile County to build opposition to any postponement.
“Most of the leaders we’ve talked to are against moving the elections,” Martin said. “It’s not fair to the citizens and their right to vote.”
With the league’s decision now pushed to June, candidates and election officials in Prichard, Fairhope, Daphne and other affected cities are left to prepare for an Aug. 25 election date that remains, for now, unchanged.