The Constitution Party has been petitioning for ballot status in the upcoming special election, State House district 31. In this district, 512 valid signatures are needed for independent candidates and for unqualified parties. Normally Alabama checks petitions on a flow basis, so that petitioning groups can tell how they are doing, and how many more they need. But now, the Secretary of State refuses to check any of the party’s petitions until after the deadline, so the party doesn’t have the benefit of knowing how many more signatures it needs.
The party has collected 675 signatures and is working to collect more. The deadline is 4 p.m. on Tuesday, December 3. That is also the date of the Republican primary. No Democrat filed, so this will be a one-candidate election if the party’s petition does not succeed, because no one else is petitioning. The 31st district is in Elmore and Coosa Counties.
Because there are four Republicans running in the primary tomorrow, probably no one will get a majority and there will be a run-off primary on January 28, 2014. In that case, the election itself will be in March 2014.
If the Secretary of State is a Republican, that would probably explain why he is acting this way.
It is now 4:00pm Eastern time on 12/3. With one hour to go, wishing the ‘Bama party the best of luck with this endeavor.
Received call from SOS this evening approximately 2hours after the office closed. NO numbers just a belief we would have them tomorrow..
There will be a run-off Republican primary, so the election itself won’t be until March.