Alabama Democrat Wins State Senate Seat Merely by Being Nominated by her Party

Alabama is one of the states that fills vacant legislative seats with a special election. However, it turns out that, in Alabama, when only one party nominates anyone for that special election, and no independent files, the party nominee is deemed to be the winner. See this story, which explains that Priscilla Dunn will be seated as the new State Senator from the 19th District because no other party nominated anyone.


Comments

Alabama Democrat Wins State Senate Seat Merely by Being Nominated by her Party — No Comments

  1. This is insane. the LP needs to be organized and must have candidates run in special elections when there is not a Libertarian Republican that is running.

  2. Alabama does permit write-ins in general elections. But apparently the existence of a write-in option is overridden in special elections by the idea of canceling the election. In Alabama there is no such thing as a write-in declaration of candidacy, and all write-ins are equally valid, even for people who aren’t really candidates.

  3. Richard:
    In this situation, would a non ballot qualified party
    need to run a candidate as an Independent if they had
    chosen to have someone run for the seat or could the
    candidate be listed under the party’s name?

  4. Deemer:

    In Alabama, to run as an independent candidate or with a minor party, that individual or party must file a ballot access petition by the date of the primary election, in this case the special primary election.

  5. Alabama permits a minor party to get on the ballot in just a single district, or a single county, even if it isn’t qualifying statewide. The independent candidate petition and the petition for a new or previously unqualified party (for office other than president) are each 3% of the last gubernatorial vote (within that district, of course).

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