Clearing Up Primary Ballot Confusion

On Tuesday at the top of your ballot you will vote for president, then you are going to see a ton of names that can get a little confusing. This is where you will be voting for delegates.

Say you vote for Ben Carson, you will then select delegates to represent Carson. These are the people that go to the National Republican and Democratic Convention. They are the ones who vote on behalf of the state, reflecting the outcome of the primary election. Fifty republican and 58 democratic delegates represent Alabama. That number is divided among candidates who get more than 20 percent of the vote, so the more votes on March 1st…the more people representing the candidate at the conventions.
Alabama is just a fraction of the more than 600 delegates up for grabs in each party, but the Secretary of State says every vote counts.

John Merrill, Secretary of State said, “All of the major candidates that are remaining are coming back to Alabama this weekend. You have the two lead candidates for the Republican party in Mr. Trump and Senator Rubio and then you have the lead Democrat candidate in Secretary Clinton coming back and they’ve all already been here at least two times and this is another visit. And it’s the last weekend before the vote so it shows you how important Alabama is to them.”
On the back of your ballot will be all the state and local races.  There’s actually a bill working it’s way through the legislator to move the delegate voting to the end, to make it a little less confusing.

The candidate who gets more than half of the delegate votes will be the Republican or Democratic nominee.