Pitiful



The Alabama Legislature, after five months of slow-moving sausage making, bounced back into the State House last month after a special session was called by Governor Kay Ivey. The matter at hand: bringing back the Congressional district map that was in effect until 2023. This affects districts 1, 2, 6, and 7.

Reaction was immediate. Last week, a rally was held in downtown Montgomery. The protesters retraced the steps of the Selma-to-Montgomery march. Key national-level politicians were in town.  The major news networks had reporters in Alabama covering the story.

All of this was met with a shrug. Ho hum. The politics of grievance, of division. We are Alabama, of course, where being pro-life means you are pro-gun and pro-death penalty. We don’t need out-of-towners telling us what to do!

The actions by the Legislature threw the entire 2026 electoral process into a tailspin. Beyond this primary, there is a run-off in June. And then, a special election in August for the districts that were modified to the old map, and a run-off if needed follows that. Finally, the real deal happens in November. Clear as mud?

If you were to dig deep into a social media site – let’s say, Tallassee CityWatch Uncut – and note the number of people who are reading and participating, it’s at over 26,000 people. That’s most of Elmore and Tallapoosa counties contributing on a discussion board.

Nearly everyone has an opinion. Many use aliases but have no problem calling the names of others.

My point is, that many people live around here and care about what is happening in our community.

You wouldn’t have known by the voter turnout last week in the primaries. And sure, it’s a primary, which is not as important to many people as a major election – but with all that has happened the past month to modify these elections, one would have thought that there would at least have been some moderate interest in it.

This was the start of a rare election cycle that featured open races for both Governor and U.S. Senate. We also had two of our U.S. Senators both vying for the top of the ticket on the Democrat and Republican sides.

On the day after the election, the Alabama Secretary of State’s office reported a statewide voter turnout of 23.1%.

That includes huge counties such as Mobile County, which saw 17% of their citizens voting, and Morgan County, which had over 24% of their registered voters participating.

Here in Tallassee, we have nearly 4,000 registered voters ages 18 and above. Many of those 4,000 people love to share their opinions on social media, griping and fussing about things in our town.

In the primary, 866 people in Tallassee took part and cared enough to cast ballots.

For last year’s election of mayor, school board and city council, 766 people voted.

There is only one word for this: pitiful.

Everyone in the world knows about the civil rights struggle that had its origins in this part of Alabama. It doesn’t matter about political party affiliation – what is tragic is that so few people care to participate. The decisions made by these politicians will affect all of us, and we are handing that over to 23% of the people?

I understand the viewpoint that one vote doesn’t matter. There are some great people who choose to sit out elections because they feel the fix is already in – and I can understand why they feel that way. Yet, just giving up and not participating at all is a mystery to me.

Michael Bird is an assistant professor at Faulkner University.