Montgomery Demonstration Urges Voter Turnout Ahead of Alabama Midterms
Voter turnout dropped to historic lows in recent cycles, prompting more than 250 people to gather in downtown Montgomery on Saturday to encourage participation ahead of the upcoming midterm elections and Monday’s voter registration deadline, newsfromthestates.com reported.
The demonstration marked the fourth installment of the “No Kings” movement, a national series of events protesting President Donald Trump and his administration’s policies. Organizers planned more than 2,500 events nationwide focusing on early voting. Montgomery’s gathering stood as one of 17 events scheduled across Alabama, with additional rallies set in Birmingham, Huntsville, and Mobile.
Alabama lacks both early in-person voting and no-excuse absentee voting. State Democratic lawmakers have repeatedly introduced legislation to establish early in-person voting, but Republican opponents have blocked the measures by citing high implementation costs.
Do you want early voting here?
Beth Bowden, one of the event’s organizers, asked the crowd, which responded with loud cheers.
Historical Turnout Figures and Registration Deadlines
State voter participation ranks among the lowest nationwide. During the 2024 presidential election, 58.7% of eligible Alabamians cast a ballot, marking the lowest presidential turnout in the state since 1988, according to data from the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office. In the 2022 midterm election, about 38.6% of eligible voters participated, the lowest midterm turnout recorded since 1986.
Without early voting options, event organizers focused on driving direct democratic participation before the registration window closes. The deadline to register for Alabama’s midterm elections is Monday, with the election taking place in 17 days.
Tabitha Isner, former vice chair of the Alabama Democratic Party and co-founder of the nonprofit Atlas for Democracy, has used state voting records to identify dedicated voters in Montgomery County whom she terms Super Voters—defined as individuals who have voted at least 25 times in the last 15 years, or in every election during that span. Isner stated that 5% of the county’s registered voters meet this definition. She visits these residents to deliver Super Voter yard signs and offer recognition.
The goal is honor and praise, pure and simple,
Isner said. I just want people to know that somebody noticed that they’re doing the thing, but also we know it needs to be done.
Although Montgomery leans Democratic, Isner visits voters regardless of political affiliation. She recounted an encounter with a Republican resident who questioned her visit given their known political differences. I love democracy more than I love being a Democrat,
she told him.
State records compiled over the last 15 years show that 13% of Montgomery County voters cast ballots at least 20 times, 23% voted at least 15 times, and 53% voted fewer than five times. At the Saturday protest, Isner handed out signs and set up a red carpet for Super Voters to walk down for photographs. One recipient, Joanne Compton, explained in an interview that she votes to honor her ancestors.
I’m standing on the shoulders of my ancestors, and I’m hoping that I’m making them proud because of the sacrifices that they made just for me to be able to vote,
Compton said. Not only can you not vote, but I can also vote for the future generation that’s coming up.
Legal Battles and Civil Rights Context
Evan Milligan, a plaintiff in the Alabama redistricting case Allen v. Milligan—which resulted in the creation of a near-majority Black congressional district redrawn by the Legislature in May—addressed the crowd on Saturday. He argued that the executive authority demonstrated by the Trump administration mirrors past efforts to suppress Black voting rights.
This is a place where I believe we can imagine a different type of outcome, but what will that outcome require of us?
Milligan said. We have to stop doing one thing, and that’s lying to ourselves about where and how leadership works in our social movements.
The map used in the Milligan litigation was redrawn following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais and a subsequent special session of the Alabama Legislature that canceled congressional primaries in four districts and two state senate districts.
Sheyann Webb-Christburg, who was eight years old when Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. attempted to lead hundreds in a march from Selma to Montgomery in March 1965, told attendees she has never stopped fighting for ballot access.
Regardless of the struggles and the challenges which we are plagued with today, we can’t feel tired because we’ve come too far from where we started from,
Webb-Christburg said.
State records show that 3.8 million Alabamians were registered to vote as of June 16, according to the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office.
The next time somebody tells you that one vote doesn’t matter, remember those 13 votes, because elections are not decided by the people who intended the vote,
Love said. They are not decided by the people who talked about voting, and they are not decided by the people who complained about the outcome afterward, they are decided by the ballots actually cast and lawfully counted.
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