The Alabama legislature adjourned on June 4, after having failed to pass SB 221, the ballot access improvement bill. Many other election law bills also failed to pass. Several bills concerning the counting of write-in bills failed to pass. HB 451 would have required write-in candidates who want their write-ins tallied to file a declaration of candidacy; it passed the House but not the Senate. HB 503, which would have said no write-ins should be counted unless the vote-counting equipment suggests a write-in candidate might have won, made no progress at all.

HB 344, which would have clarified exactly which “crimes of moral turpitude” result in loss of one’s voting rights, passed the House but not the Senate. The Alabama Constitution says persons convicted of crimes of moral turpitude cannot register to vote, but doesn’t explain which crimes that means. Bills to let ex-felons register to vote, SB 294 and SB 352, made no progress.

SB 59, to allow individuals to register at the polls, failed to make any headway. HB 79, which would have abolished runoff primaries, also failed to move. HB 334, to set up a top-two system, failed to move.

The few bills that did pass include the bill mentioned in the post below setting earlier petition deadlines for presidential candidates; SB 240, which has already been signed and which moves the primary and the petition deadlines for newly-qualifying parties and non-presidential independent candidates from the second to the first Tuesday in March; HB 323, to make it easier to remove deceased voters from the registration list; HB 254, to make it easier for Alabama election officials to share the list of registered voters with election officials in other states; and SB 19 and HB 6, which deal with municipal elections.