A bill to synchronize the elections of Birmingham City Council members with the mayoral elections

Alabama State House Representative Merika Coleman of Birmingham drafted a bill that would synchronize municipal council and mayoral elections in Birmingham to all on the same day.  The bill passed the House committee on Monday and will go to the full Jefferson County delegation to debate the bill.  However, the bill would extend the term of the jackal from 2011 to 2013 (hmmm...). It sounds like to me Coleman is allowing that jackal more time to prove how much of a jackass he is to the people rather than who potent he is to the city.  The Birmingham City Council agree with me (to certain extent) and that is not giving Bell an additional 2 years in office.  The election should be held next year in 2011 rather than 2013. 

Also State House Rep. John Rogers of Birmingham also has drafted a bill that would realign the City Council representation from 9 districts to 8 districts and on at-large seat for the City Council President (not a bad idea).  However, why don't they just go back to all at-large voting for all seats which would allow the possibility of a more progressive city council?  I mean it would remove the existence of fiefdom ideology from the City Council elections where people think they can talk shit about one side of the city and its demographic of citizenry without being held accountable to all the citizens at the ballot.  The more accountability, the better because Birmingham needs to force those idiots "who want to have their cake and eat it to" to be gone if they decide to run for mayor instead of going back to being a vindictive city councilor.  My advice to Merika Coleman is, rewrite the bill and move the election to 2011 if you want to gain more support and likelihood of your legislation's passage. 

State Representative John Rogers is contesting the validity of the Birmingham City Council District 6 race

John Rogers, House Representative and cousin of council contender Shelia Tyson, is contesting the results of the October 6th run-off between his cousin and Carole Smitherman.  He claims that there were 1,400 provisional ballots, ballots are given to voters when there are questions about their eligibility to vote, cast during the election last Tuesday.  He wants them to be counted in the final vote totals for District 6 race. 

Tyson said:

It's a civil right to be able to vote, and if they feel like someone was not given their right then they need to look into it.

Whereas Smitherman is rest assured that she is the winner saying:

"I haven't gotten any kind of notice about a contest, and until I receive notice, I'll just stand still as the winner in District 6... "I'm going to be reserved and cautious in my comments."

However, Birmingham City Clerk's office says there were only 73 cast during the election last Tuesday.  On the other hand the only people who can officiate the election results the Jefferson County Board of Registrars.

Rogers said even if he is unsuccessful in the recount he will write a bill mandating an automatic recount on all election results in which the winner wins by 1 percent or less, and banning split boxes in which a precinct is used for more than one district.

Well, do I blame him? no  On the other hand, he knows that is pointless because we all know some elections as close as this one is too close to call and will likely result in the same winner.  It's always that way when you have this slim margin victories where political agendas of the election officials comes into play and "lose" or allege there aren't such ballots.  Don't worry, Smitherman has slim chance in hell next election cycle unless she step up on her A-game on serving all of the district (half of the 15% of eligible voters voted against her and the rest didn't even feel like voting at all), which I doubt because she has become way too comfortable.