Local News
House District 12 election Tuesday
By Brittany Woodby
District 12 voters will choose their new representative this Tuesday — only a month before the 2008 legislative session begins.
Former House District 12 Representative Neal Morrison resigned from the position in August after taking the presidency at Bevill State Community College in Sumiton.
His resignation cleared the way for local politicians to campaign for the seat with seven candidates coming forward in the primary special election.
Of the three Democratic candidates, James Fields took the party nomination with an overwhelming 64.48 percent of Democrat votes-- over twice as many votes as any other Democratic or Republican candidate.
The Republican party held a run-off election in December to choose a candidate. Cullman County Commissioner Wayne Willingham won the nomination as he took the majority of votes over fellow Republican Bill Floyd.
Willingham currently sits on the Cullman County Commission and has also served as the mayor of West Point. Fields has worked with the state department of industrial relations and the North Alabama Council of Governments, and now pastors a church in Irondale.
Despite campaign efforts and publicity from both camps, voter turnout for the primary election and the run-off election was weak.
“Our biggest concern was low voter turnout, but there’s not much we can do about that,” Cullman County Probate Judge Leah Patterson-Lust said after the primary election Nov. 13.
Of the 36 poll boxes set up around District 12, only 4,430 votes were tallied for the primary.
Even fewer voters showed up for the Republican primary — only 1,942.
However, Patterson-Lust said there were no major complications with either of the first two elections and she expects the general election this Tuesday to go smoothly.
The House District 12 election will be held one week before the entire county votes in the state’s presidential primary. Patterson-Lust said the probate office made arrangements to secure additional voting boxes and held only one polling school to train poll workers for both elections.
There will be 36 ballot boxes collected for the general special election, with additional boxes for provisional and absentee ballots.
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