2026 Episode 5: What You Need To Know About Voting in the May Primary

We sit down with Barry Stephenson, Chairman of the Board of Registrars and walk through everything you need to know about voting in the upcoming May 19th Primary election.  Hint: AlabamaVotes.gov is your friend. What we cover in this episode: 

• Voting location changes: If you normally vote at the Hoover Met or Finley Center, you will vote at Hunter Street Baptist Church for the primary. Irondale voters, the old Zamora Temple is still under construction, voting will be at the new Irondale Library. And, for those in the McAdory area there is an added voting location of Bellview Baptist Church. 

Key dates to remember: 

• May 4 - Voter Registration Deadline
• May 12 - last day to apply for an absentee ballot to mail
• May 14 - Last day to apply for an absentee ballot in person
• May 18 - Last day to hand deliver absentee ballot
• May 19 - Absentee ballots returned by mail must be received by Noon

Take 15 minutes and give this podcast a listen, and be ready to vote!

Have an idea for a County podcast? Contact the Director of Public Information, Helen Hays at haysh@jccal.org

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:18

Welcome, everybody, to the Jefferson County Podcast for the people. I'm your host today, Helen Hays. I'm the director of public information for Jefferson County. And with me today, I have Barry Stephenson. Barry is the man when it comes to elections, and he's been doing this for a really long time. Barry, thanks for joining us. I know we are about six to seven weeks out from the May primaries. And how are things going?

Speaker 0:48

Well, yeah, thank you for having me, Helen. And yes, we just uh passed under the seven-week mark. So it's um uh 47 days until uh the May primary, and it's going well. Uh absentee balloting has begun, so you have a couple of choices for absentee. You can mail in an application for an absentee ballot to be sent to you uh to your residence through the mail and vote it, vote your ballot, and then return it through the mail, or you can come to the courthouse. Uh if you're in the Birmingham division, you come to the downtown courthouse. If you're in the Bessemer cutoff, you go to the Bessemer Courthouse and you can vote on-site. Um Alabama does not have early voting, but they do have on-site absentee voting. So you would cast your ballot, put it in a sealed envelope, and then that sealed envelope is placed in a safe, and uh the night of the election, and absentee voting is treated as its own precinct, those ballots will be removed and then uh uh sorted and then counted at 7 p.m. the night of the election, just like the other uh all the other precincts across the county, and it would be reported as its own precinct. So you have two options if you choose to vote absentee.

Speaker 1 2:10

Well, that's good to know. And so and that all has to be done if somebody's gonna mail it in. When do when do those have to be received?

Speaker 2:20

Okay, so the last day that you can vote in person at the respective courthouses is Thursday, May 13th. Have your ballot counted if you vote by mail, it has to be received by election day, May 19th. So if you mail it the day before the election and the post office doesn't, even though it's postmart, but we don't get it here at the courthouse till the day after the election or a few days after, it will not count. We have to have it in hand uh by election day. And that that's confusing to some voters because they think just as long as it's postmart, because because some states have that as the law. Alabama law states that it has to be here by on election day.

Speaker 1 3:10

That's a really good clarification for people to know. And I know the postal service, we don't control the mail, right? So that really is on the voter.

Speaker 3:20

And we have a good relationship with the postal service, but you know, you're you're dependent upon them once you place it uh in in their distribution channel. So um if you are gonna vote by mail, go ahead and get it, go ahead and get it, vote it, and and mail it back. So we'll have it here.

Speaker 1 3:39

All right. The other thing that you are responsible for are the voting locations, the polling locations. Are there any changes you can foresee on the horizon and locations that citizens may need to know about this year?

Speaker 3:53

Yeah, the biggest change we're having for this May 19th primary is that is the same day that the Southeastern Conference baseball tournament starts. Um yes, so we are not able to use in the Hoover Met area, we use both the Hoover Met Baseball Stadium and the Finley Center, which is right next door. Uh, we're not able to use that, obviously, because the baseball tournament's going on. So those precincts, if you vote at the Hoover Met Baseball Stadium or you vote at the Finley Center, uh you will both those precincts will vote at the Hunter Street Baptist uh youth uh student center uh just for that day only. And uh we've got a good relationship with Hunter Street. They were gracious to agree they understood our predicament. And there's lots of parking, there's lots of ingress and egress. Uh the student activity student center is in it's separate from the church. It's in it's uh it's in the parking lot. Um and we voted there before in the past. Uh so uh that's the biggest change. If you're in the Hoover area and you vote, uh have voted at the Hoover Met Baseball Stadium or the Finley Center, for the primary only, you will vote at Hunter Street Baptist Students Activity Center. And then for the primary runoff, which is June 16th, and the general election, which is in November, everything's back to the Hoover Met facilities. Um we've also know there, yeah.

Speaker 1 5:25

That's important for people to know. Yeah.

Speaker 5:27

If you're in the Irondale area, uh City of Irondale, for those that may not know, bought the old Zamora Temple facility and they are transforming that into the new Irondale Civic Center. Uh, it is under renovation and construction, and it is it is a heavy-duty construction zone right now. And because of that, and talking with the city of Irondale, we're it's just not gonna be ready for the primary and the runoff. Uh, it's gonna be a great facility when they finish the renovations. So for the May primary and the June 16th runoff, if you voted previously at the Irondale Civic Center, you're gonna be voting at the new Irondale Library. It's not far uh from the uh the old Zamora Temple, it's gonna be the new Irondale Civic Center. And the Irondale Library will serve for the primary and the primary runoff. We've also split uh a big precinct down in the western part of the county, uh Baptist Church of Macadory, which is real close to Macadory High School. we've split that so we'll have a more efficient voting process, uh, easier to get in and out of the parking lot, easier to get in and out of the facility. So we've split it. We've added a new precinct down there. Um, and that's Bellevue Baptist Church, which is further down Eastern Valley Road. Most people in that McCalla area, they know exactly where Bellevue Baptist is. It's uh a little, it's further west, further down Eastern Valley Road. So we've mailed notification cards to all those voters, and in the month of May leading up to the May 19th primary, we will mail every voter again of the changes.

Speaker 1 7:17

That's a lot. We'll make sure too that we highlight that when we um share this podcast because I just think that's important for people to know. You get in a pattern when you're ready to vote. I know I do, and I go to my old polling location, and so it would be surprising if it you know wasn't, but I know you're sending the notices to the citizens and everything, but we'll make sure we share that on our social media channels as well. So let's move into the area of IDs to vote. Um, all politics aside, anything like that. So you just need to have a valid ID, something that's not expired. Can you walk through what those scenarios would look like?

Speaker 8:04

Yeah, so this is not a new concept. If you've been voting in Alabama, Alabama's been a photo ID state since 2010. Um, most people use their driver's license, but there are other uh accepted forms of uh identification. The most common is the driver's license. Uh you can have a passport. If you're a student at a secondary education, so it could either be junior college or university. So, for example, in within Jefferson County, we have UAB, we have Sanford, uh, we have Miles, we have Jeff State, we have Lawson State. Um, but you could be home from Alabama or Auburn or South Alabama, wherever you're attending. You that ID is also acceptable. So those student IDs are acceptable. A military ID uh is acceptable. Uh we don't see many of these, but a tribal ID. So if you're a member of the um the Porch Creek Indian tribe, that would be acceptable. So um almost everyone uses a driver's license. Now, if you no longer drive, you can get a non-driver's ID uh from the same place you get your driver's license. It looks exactly like a driver's license, except it's not proof for your drive-in. And we see that for senior adults who no longer drive. And or if you're possibly maybe there's no other way you can get an ID. You're ending. We give out free IDs at our office. So uh that's something that we provide at no cost. Uh, you do have to come to our office in the downtown courthouse, but uh, and we do a handful of IDs every week, and we'll continue to do that leading up to the election.

Speaker 1 9:51

That's great. That's good information there as well. So there was one more question I have. What is the deadline? If we have people that may have moved into the area that are new, or if they've just moved in the area, when is the deadline for them to register to vote? And that's primary.

Speaker 10:09

So if you want to register, or if you've changed your address, you've moved within the county, or maybe you've moved here from Shelby County or St. Clair County or whatever, you have until May 4th to make any change. So, and we have a combination of changes we're doing every day. New registrants, people who are moving into the county but were registered in another county, or possibly they they've had a name change, maybe a marriage, a divorce, whatever. Um so we're doing those every day, uh, but you have until close of business uh May 4th. That's that's two weeks before the primary.

unknown 10:49

Okay. And there's some online resources for people if they want to check their voting locations. Can you kind of run through what those options are?

Speaker 10:58

Yeah, the best election website resource that there is for Alabama is AlabamaVotes.gov. That's AlabamaVotes.gov. It's the Secretary of State's website, but a lot of the information, all the voter information comes from the respective counties, but it has all the information, the election calendar. Uh, if you uh want to seek information about your individual polling precinct, you can put your uh name and date of birth and it'll tell you where you vote. It'll tell you what districts you're in, such as congressional district, commission district, state house, state senate, etc. Uh the election calendars on there. You can put off an absentee ballot application to mail in. Um there's sample ballots that you can find on the Alabamavotes.gov. So it is the best resource for voting information in the state.

Speaker 1 11:53

Well, Barry, thank you so much. Is there anything else that we've missed that you think is important for voters to know?

Speaker 12:00

Yes, this is a primary. So the respective parties, both Democrat and Republican, are choosing candidates to be their nominees for later in the year, the general election. So when you go in, Alabama, Alabama does not currently does not register a person by party. Every voter is a free agent. Now you can be inclined to be on one side of the political spectrum or the other, uh, but you get to choose. So when you go in, you will be choosing to vote in the Republican primary or the Democrat primary. It is your choice. Uh, but there's a new law that was passed last year, two years ago, that if you let's say you vote in the Republican primary on May 19th, you cannot vote in the Democrat runoff June 16th. You can't cross over. It's the anti-crossover um legislation. Likewise, if you vote in the Democrat primary on May 19th, you cannot cross over and vote in the Republican runoff on June 16th. So no crossover voting. But if you didn't vote at all, if you don't vote at all on May 19th, then you're a free agent again on for the June 16th primary runoff. So but this is this is the political parties choosing their nominees uh to go forward to the general election in November.

Speaker 1 13:24

Well, great information as always. We appreciate it. And I want to thank everybody who has taken the time to listen to this podcast, um, the podcast for the people. And if you have ideas for subject matters or if there's something we didn't answer for you today, um shoot me an email. My email address is Hayes. That's H A Y S H at JCCAL.org. And we'll try our best to maybe do another podcast and get those questions answered for you. Until next time, we'll see you on the Jefferson County podcast for the people.