{"id":9885,"date":"2026-04-21T20:37:53","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T20:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/?p=9885"},"modified":"2026-04-21T20:48:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T20:48:17","slug":"house-bill-541-could-impact-voting-in-primary-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/2026\/04\/21\/house-bill-541-could-impact-voting-in-primary-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"House Bill 541 could impact voting in primary elections"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TROY, Ala. (TROJANVISION<\/a>) \u2014 House Bill 541<\/a> would require Alabama voters to register with a political party before they can vote in that party\u2019s primary election.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right now, voters in Alabama\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0have to choose a party\u2014they\u2019re\u00a0considered unaffiliated and can vote in either\u00a0the Democratic or Republican\u00a0primary. The bill\u2019s sponsor, Representative Ernie Yarbrough<\/a>, said the change would prevent candidates elected by Republican voters from later governing like Democrats.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy did it take so long, for example, constitutional carry?\u201d Yarbrough said. \u201cWhy did it take so long to get school choice? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are other platform issues that we could talk about that people would think to be a Republican platform, and why do other bills move so quickly?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

MORE FOR YOU: Lt. Governor candidate talks agenda at joint democratic meeting<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the bill is\u00a0advancing to\u00a0the senate chamber for a full vote,\u00a0State\u00a0Senators Merika Coleman<\/a> and Linda Coleman-Madison<\/a> expressed concern over the piece of legislation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know where these liberal republicans are in this legislative body,\u201d Coleman said. \u201cI actually wish they would vote more liberally on some issues, making it easier when it comes to people voting.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVoting is about citizens; it is a citizen’s right, not a party right,\u201d Linda Coleman-Madison said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coleman argued that Republicans are trying to change the rules despite already holding power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republicans control every branch of government in the state of Alabama,\u201d Coleman said. \u201cThey\u2019ve got the governor\u2019s mansion, every constitutional office, all of the supreme court and a super majority in the Alabama legislature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is crazy to me that folks that are winning at this level now want to change the playing field.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bills\u2019 fate will now be determined in the Senate chamber. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TROY, Ala. (TROJANVISION) \u2014 House Bill 541 would require Alabama voters to register with a political party before they can vote in that party\u2019s primary election.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Right now, voters in Alabama\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0have to choose a party\u2014they\u2019re\u00a0considered unaffiliated and can vote in either\u00a0the Democratic or Republican\u00a0primary. The bill\u2019s sponsor, Representative Ernie Yarbrough, said the change would prevent…<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":10001,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1126],"tags":[3034,3033,1161],"topics":[1123],"class_list":["post-9885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state-news","tag-ernie-yarbrough","tag-house-bill-541","tag-politics","topics-state-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9885"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9995,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9885\/revisions\/9995"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9885"},{"taxonomy":"topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.troy.edu\/trojanvision\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topics?post=9885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}