We are about a month away from the June 5 Democratic and Republican primaries in Alabama and things seem awfully quite on the local level because there is only one local race on the ballot in the Democratic Primary between incumbent District 5 Commissioner David Quarker and challenger Karean Reynolds.
Things will be different in the November General Election when we have Republican nominees and Democratic nominees for county commissioner, sheriff and state representative.
So, I'll go ahead and predict a very low voter turnout in June. The only race that may draw a lot of attention will be the two primaries to select the party nominees for governor.
There is a Democratic Primary between Robert Kennedy Jr. and Lizetta Hill McConnell to decide who will be embarrassed by Republican incumbent Bradley Byrne in November, but most people don't care.
So, I'm going to start my annual civics class 101 today. On June 5 you will have to decide whether you want to vote in the Democratic or Republican primary. You can't vote in both.
Primaries are not elections. When people win primary elections, they simply win the right to represent their respective party in the November General Election.
But in every primary, you will have people go to the polls and when the poll worker asks them whether they want to vote Democrat or Republican, they say 'it's none of your business'. Well, it is their business and you can only get one ballot, not both. I've seen people walk out without voting because they had to declare a party.
The new rule implemented a few years ago also forbids people who voted in the Republican Primary to cast a ballot in the Democratic runoff and vice versa.
I'm not going to mention Delmer Tew's name, but he was in my office a few weeks ago saying he was a registered Republican. I told him he was not a registered Republican because we don't have party registration in Alabama. It's different in Florida where you do have to register.
Delmer insisted he was on a Republican list. I reminded him that if he voted in the Republican Primary he was on the Republican list for the runoff only.
I make my decision on which primary I vote in based on the races on the ballot. As of today, I plan on voting in the Republican Primary mainly to cast a vote for Atmore native Lyn Stuart for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. I'll vote for Democrats and Republicans in November.
I don't like partisan politics. I personally think it is way outdated, especially on the local level. My bet is party politics began in an era when people didn't have 24-7 access to the news. We started this country in 1776 and George Washington was elected as our first president by Congress on Feb. 4, 1789.
Historians disagree on the birth of political parties but some trace it back to President Washington's Secretary of State and Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton over which powers should be with the federal government and which powers should be maintained in the states.
Political parties started setting 'platforms'. People started voting for platforms instead of candidates because they never heard of the candidates.
Over the years we've somehow labeled Democrats as liberals and Republicans as conservatives, which is not true but we are too lazy to learn about the individual candidates.
We've got three types of voters in this country today. We've got Yellow Dog Democrats and Die Hard Republicans and both would vote for Hitler over Jesus depending on party affiliation.
Then you've got people like me who don't line up with any political party and vote for the person, not the party.
I guess we are stuck with the Democrats and Republicans until a third party candidate emerges. The more I see, there are more people like me who don't align themselves with political parties, but rather with the people on the ballot.
A lot of the problems would be solved if we took partisan politics out of the courthouses and definitely out of our judicial races. Hopefully I'll live long enough to see that day, but I'm not hopeful.
So, just remember, on June 5 you will have to declare whether you are voting on the Democratic or Republican ticket. If you won't declare, you won't vote.
