Tears and Laughter: Hell hasn’t frozen over in Wilcox County…but things are getting icy

Hell has not yet officially frozen over in Wilcox County. But the dust has started to settle after the June 3 primary election. Focus has narrowed toward the July 15, commissioner’s runoff races in District 3 and District 6.

And I don’t know who first came up with the notion of attempting to have honest elections in Wilcox County.

Nobody seems to remember them ever being fair in the history of the place, so there hasn’t been too much in the way of expectation.

In fact there had been the opposite.

A lot of people had the attitude that it is not even worth investing time and energy into trying to have honest elections because they feel nothing will ever change.

But now the well-known Impact Wilcox group is hugely dedicated to ending corruption in local government, and their meetings continue to draw crowds.

I won’t turn this into a newscast, but it has been widely reported. The evidence of corruption can be found with a minimum of effort and keystrokes. There is ample information about the years and layers of corruption that haunt and divide this area still.

The results are obvious too.

That’s why there seems to be three kinds of people in Wilcox these days. Those who are acutely aware of the wrongdoing, those in suspicion of being involved in the wrongdoing, and those who tune it out because they have tried to end it before and have no tolerance left for it.

If you have lost patience in the past, consider inviting your attention back. Especially if you are a registered voter in District 3 or District 6.

But that is short term

Depending upon the results come July 15, there is an opportunity to change what nobody thought possible. To fix a county all but a handful of people had given up on even the possibility of ever changing.

The next step after absentee votes no longer swing elections, is to have strong candidates step forward in future elections who feel they have in some way been prepared to serve. Candidates capable of leading and have some kind of discernment about themselves.

And I don’t want to stir things up. But if I was Kay Ivey I would be completely offended.

This is her home county.

A place that has gained national attention for the number of absentee ballots that float out of here, and she got a grand total of four absentee votes on June 3. I haven’t seen a word about it in the press.

Ms. Ivey either needs to get some organizers working to secure more absentees…or Impact Wilcox really got the word out that to vote for local government offices – even in the runoffs – you must use a Democratic ballot.

Hell hasn’t frozen over yet here in Wilcox County. But there does seem to be a thin layer of ice developing.

Amanda Walker is a columnist with The West Alabama Watchman, Al.com, and The Wilcox Progressive Era. Follow her at https://www.facebook.com/AmandaWalker.Columnist.