Alabama gubernatorial election, 2002
Encyclopedia
An Alabama gubernatorial election was held on November 5, 2002. The race pitted incumbent Governor Don Siegelman
, a Democrat
) against Representative
Bob Riley
, a Republican
, and Libertarian
nominee John Sophocleus
.
The result was an extremely narrow victory for Riley. The certified results showed Riley with 672,225 votes to Siegelman's 669,105 (a difference of 3,120 votes, or 0.23% of the 1,367,053 votes cast). Sophocleus garnered 23,272 votes, and 2,451 votes were for write-in candidate
s. Bob Riley
defeated Governor, Don Siegelman
in a close and controversial election marked by high turnout
. Riley was reelected in 2006.
opponents whose opposition turned out to be less than expected. The primaries were held on June 4, 2002. Siegelman won the Democratic nomination with 74 percent of the vote, winning a majority
needed to avoid a runoff. Siegelman's main primary opponent was Charles Bishop
, the Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries
.
Riley similarly took the Republican nomination without a runoff, taking 73 percent against a Republican primary field that included Lieutenant Governor Steve Windom
, and businessman Tim James
, the son of former Governor Fob James
.
George W. Bush
appeared in Alabama at a July event, and a private reception with a $50,000 admission was held to benefit the Riley campaign. Riley's campaign initially refused to identify the donors attending the event. Later, under pressure from the Siegelman campaign, Riley called on the national Republican Party, which had hosted the event, to release the names of donors. The Riley campaign was subjected to editorial criticism when the voluminous reports released made it difficult to trace the sources of donations from the event to Riley.
During the campaign, actor and National Rifle Association
president Charlton Heston
came to Alabama to campaign for Republican congressional candidates. While in the state, Heston released a written statement endorsing Siegelman, despite the fact that Riley had made a point of being seen in public with Heston. Spokesmen for both Riley and the Alabama Republican Party issued statements insinuating that Siegelman had taken advantage of Heston's recently-diagnosed Alzheimer's disease
to secure the endorsement. After a firestorm of criticism from the NRA and editorial pages, the Republican spokesmen apologized to Heston, but not to Siegelman.
Riley received the endorsements of The Birmingham News
, the Mobile Press-Register, the Business Council of Alabama, and the Auburn University
Trustee Improvement PAC, an alumni group which opposed Siegelman's choices for trustees at the school. In addition to the NRA, Siegelman was endorsed by The Montgomery Advertiser, The Anniston Star
, The Tuscaloosa News
, and various labor groups, including the Alabama State Employees Association. Siegelman was also endorsed by Alabama Education Association
executive secretary Paul Hubbert, although the Association itself remained officially neutral.
The campaign set new spending records for an Alabama gubernatorial race. Even before the final weeks of the campaign, the candidates had raised over $17,000,000. Riley, who raised and spent over twice the sum Siegelman raised, was primarily backed by business groups and insurance companies. Siegelman received substantial contributions from labor groups and affiliates of the Alabama Education Association. Both candidates were the beneficiaries of national party funding, and contributions from political action committees made donations to both candidates difficult to trace.
Polls taken in the final days of the campaign reflected the eventual close outcome.
of 2000. Initial returns showed Riley narrowly losing to Siegelman. Siegelman gave a victory speech on election night, and the Associated Press
initially declared him the winner. However, officials in Baldwin County
conducted a recount and retabulation of that county's votes after midnight, and after Democratic Party observers had gone home for the night. Approximately 6,000 votes initially credited to Siegelman were either removed from the total or reassigned to Riley in the recount, turning the statewide result in Riley's favor. Local Republican officials claimed the earlier returns were the result of a "computer glitch." Democratic requests to repeat the recount with Democratic observers present were rejected by Alabama courts and then-Attorney General William H. Pryor, Jr. Siegelman and his supporters complained that these judges (and Pryor) were either elected as Republicans or appointed by Republican presidents. After over a week of fights in courtrooms and in the media, Siegelman, on November 18, 2002, made a televised address, saying that, "I've decided that a prolonged election controversy would hurt Alabama, would hurt the very people that we worked so hard to help," and abandoned his efforts to secure a recount of the Baldwin County vote, allowing Riley to take office.
In response to the allegation of a "computer glitch," Siegelman later stated: "[N]ow one would expect that if there was some kind of computer glitch or some kind of computer programming error, that it might have affected more than one race, but it further raised suspicions about vote stealing when the votes came back and they were certified, and the only person who lost votes was Don Siegelman, the Democrat, and the only person who gained votes was Bob Riley, the Republican."
A number of analyses of the competing claims were undertaken at the time, with conflicting results. In one such study, Auburn University
political scientist James H. Gundlach concluded that a detailed analysis of the returns, compared with 1998 results and returns from undisputed counties, "strongly suggests a systematic manipulation of the voting results." The Gundlach study also suggested a mechanism by which this could have been effected, and proposed a conclusion that Siegelman won. An earlier analysis reported by the Associated Press, using a less sophisticated comparison of gubernatorial and legislative returns, was claimed to indicate that the revised returns were more accurate, and that Riley probably won. The Gundlach paper offers a refutation of the conclusions of the Associated Press study.
Largely as a result of this controversy, the Alabama Legislature
later amended the election code to provide for automatic, supervised recounts in close races. Riley took office January 20, 2003.
Don Siegelman
Don Eugene Siegelman is an American Democratic Party politician who held numerous offices in Alabama. He was the 51st Governor of Alabama for one term from 1999 to 2003...
, a Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
) against Representative
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
Bob Riley
Bob Riley (Alabama)
Robert Renfroe "Bob" Riley is an American politician in the Republican Party. He was the 52nd Governor of Alabama, first elected in 2002, and re-elected in 2006.-Early life:...
, a Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
, and Libertarian
Libertarian Party (United States)
The Libertarian Party is the third largest and fastest growing political party in the United States. The political platform of the Libertarian Party reflects its brand of libertarianism, favoring minimally regulated, laissez-faire markets, strong civil liberties, minimally regulated migration...
nominee John Sophocleus
John Sophocleus
John Peter Sophocleus is an economist and libertarian political activist in Alabama.-Career in economics:Sophocleus has taught economics at Clemson University, Auburn University, and Auburn University Montgomery. He has been twice nominated to the Who's Who Among American Teachers...
.
The result was an extremely narrow victory for Riley. The certified results showed Riley with 672,225 votes to Siegelman's 669,105 (a difference of 3,120 votes, or 0.23% of the 1,367,053 votes cast). Sophocleus garnered 23,272 votes, and 2,451 votes were for write-in candidate
Write-in candidate
A write-in candidate is a candidate in an election whose name does not appear on the ballot, but for whom voters may vote nonetheless by writing in the person's name. Some states and local jurisdictions allow a voter to affix a sticker with a write-in candidate's name on it to the ballot in lieu...
s. Bob Riley
Bob Riley
Bob Riley may refer to:* Bob Riley, 52nd Governor of Alabama* Bob C. Riley, acting Governor of Arkansas for 11 days in 1975* Bob Riley , sports car designer and founder of Riley Technologies...
defeated Governor, Don Siegelman
Don Siegelman
Don Eugene Siegelman is an American Democratic Party politician who held numerous offices in Alabama. He was the 51st Governor of Alabama for one term from 1999 to 2003...
in a close and controversial election marked by high turnout
Voter turnout
Voter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election . After increasing for many decades, there has been a trend of decreasing voter turnout in most established democracies since the 1960s...
. Riley was reelected in 2006.
Primaries
Both of the principal contestants in the general election campaign faced primary-electionPrimary election
A primary election is an election in which party members or voters select candidates for a subsequent election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election....
opponents whose opposition turned out to be less than expected. The primaries were held on June 4, 2002. Siegelman won the Democratic nomination with 74 percent of the vote, winning a majority
Majority
A majority is a subset of a group consisting of more than half of its members. This can be compared to a plurality, which is a subset larger than any other subset; i.e. a plurality is not necessarily a majority as the largest subset may consist of less than half the group's population...
needed to avoid a runoff. Siegelman's main primary opponent was Charles Bishop
Charles Bishop (Alabama senator)
Charles Bishop was a Republican member of the Alabama Senate, representing the 5th District from 2006 to 2010. He did not seek re-election in 2010. The district covers portions of Jefferson, Tuscaloosa, Walker and Winston counties. He was succeeded by fellow Republican Greg Reed.As a Democrat,...
, the Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries
Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries
The Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries is an independent agency of the government of Alabama. The Department is responsible for serving farmers and consumers of agricultural products....
.
Riley similarly took the Republican nomination without a runoff, taking 73 percent against a Republican primary field that included Lieutenant Governor Steve Windom
Steve Windom
Stephen Ralph Windom is an American politician who served as a Senator in the Alabama State Senate from 1989 to 1998 and as the 27th Lieutenant Governor of Alabama from 1999 to 2003....
, and businessman Tim James
Tim James (politician)
Tim James is an Alabama businessman from Greenville, Alabama. The son of former Alabama Governor Fob James, he sought and lost the Republican Party nomination for Governor of Alabama twice, finishing third in the Republican primaries in 2002 and 2010.-Personal life:Tim James was born in Opelika,...
, the son of former Governor Fob James
Fob James
Forrest Hood James, Jr., known as Fob James , is an American politician, a civil engineer, and an all-American half-back...
.
Campaign
The closeness of the general election contest was reflected in its intensity and fervor. At one point in the campaign, a clash erupted between the two principal campaigns over disclosure of the identities of large contributors to the Riley campaign. PresidentPresident of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
appeared in Alabama at a July event, and a private reception with a $50,000 admission was held to benefit the Riley campaign. Riley's campaign initially refused to identify the donors attending the event. Later, under pressure from the Siegelman campaign, Riley called on the national Republican Party, which had hosted the event, to release the names of donors. The Riley campaign was subjected to editorial criticism when the voluminous reports released made it difficult to trace the sources of donations from the event to Riley.
During the campaign, actor and National Rifle Association
National Rifle Association
The National Rifle Association of America is an American non-profit 501 civil rights organization which advocates for the protection of the Second Amendment of the United States Bill of Rights and the promotion of firearm ownership rights as well as marksmanship, firearm safety, and the protection...
president Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...
came to Alabama to campaign for Republican congressional candidates. While in the state, Heston released a written statement endorsing Siegelman, despite the fact that Riley had made a point of being seen in public with Heston. Spokesmen for both Riley and the Alabama Republican Party issued statements insinuating that Siegelman had taken advantage of Heston's recently-diagnosed Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
to secure the endorsement. After a firestorm of criticism from the NRA and editorial pages, the Republican spokesmen apologized to Heston, but not to Siegelman.
Riley received the endorsements of The Birmingham News
The Birmingham News
The Birmingham News is the principal daily newspaper for Birmingham, Alabama, United States, and the largest newspaper in Alabama. The paper is owned by Advance Publications...
, the Mobile Press-Register, the Business Council of Alabama, and the Auburn University
Auburn University
Auburn University is a public university located in Auburn, Alabama, United States. With more than 25,000 students and 1,200 faculty members, it is one of the largest universities in the state. Auburn was chartered on February 7, 1856, as the East Alabama Male College, a private liberal arts...
Trustee Improvement PAC, an alumni group which opposed Siegelman's choices for trustees at the school. In addition to the NRA, Siegelman was endorsed by The Montgomery Advertiser, The Anniston Star
The Anniston Star
The Anniston Star is the daily newspaper serving Anniston, Alabama, and the surrounding six-county region. Average Sunday circulation in September 2004 was 26,747. The newspaper is locally-owned by Consolidated Publishing Company, which is controlled by the descendants of Col. Harry M. Ayers, one...
, The Tuscaloosa News
The Tuscaloosa News
The Tuscaloosa News is a daily newspaper serving Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA, and the surrounding area in west central Alabama.The newspaper is a member of the New York Times Regional Media Group, a subsidiary of the New York Times Company, through the corporate entity of NYT Holdings, Inc., an...
, and various labor groups, including the Alabama State Employees Association. Siegelman was also endorsed by Alabama Education Association
Alabama Education Association
The Alabama Education Association is a professional organization that represents the teachers of public schools in the state of Alabama. It is based in the state capital of Montgomery....
executive secretary Paul Hubbert, although the Association itself remained officially neutral.
The campaign set new spending records for an Alabama gubernatorial race. Even before the final weeks of the campaign, the candidates had raised over $17,000,000. Riley, who raised and spent over twice the sum Siegelman raised, was primarily backed by business groups and insurance companies. Siegelman received substantial contributions from labor groups and affiliates of the Alabama Education Association. Both candidates were the beneficiaries of national party funding, and contributions from political action committees made donations to both candidates difficult to trace.
Polls taken in the final days of the campaign reflected the eventual close outcome.
Results
Aftermath controversy
Riley's victory was controversial, and caused many commentators to recall the Florida election recountFlorida election recount
The Florida election recount of 2000 was a period of vote re-counting that occurred following the unclear results of the 2000 United States presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore, specifically the Florida results. The election was ultimately settled in favor of George W. Bush when...
of 2000. Initial returns showed Riley narrowly losing to Siegelman. Siegelman gave a victory speech on election night, and the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
initially declared him the winner. However, officials in Baldwin County
Baldwin County, Alabama
-2010:Whereas according to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau:*85.7% White*9.4% Black*0.7% Native American*0.7% Asian*0.0% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander*1.5% Two or more races*4.4% Hispanic or Latino -2000:...
conducted a recount and retabulation of that county's votes after midnight, and after Democratic Party observers had gone home for the night. Approximately 6,000 votes initially credited to Siegelman were either removed from the total or reassigned to Riley in the recount, turning the statewide result in Riley's favor. Local Republican officials claimed the earlier returns were the result of a "computer glitch." Democratic requests to repeat the recount with Democratic observers present were rejected by Alabama courts and then-Attorney General William H. Pryor, Jr. Siegelman and his supporters complained that these judges (and Pryor) were either elected as Republicans or appointed by Republican presidents. After over a week of fights in courtrooms and in the media, Siegelman, on November 18, 2002, made a televised address, saying that, "I've decided that a prolonged election controversy would hurt Alabama, would hurt the very people that we worked so hard to help," and abandoned his efforts to secure a recount of the Baldwin County vote, allowing Riley to take office.
In response to the allegation of a "computer glitch," Siegelman later stated: "[N]ow one would expect that if there was some kind of computer glitch or some kind of computer programming error, that it might have affected more than one race, but it further raised suspicions about vote stealing when the votes came back and they were certified, and the only person who lost votes was Don Siegelman, the Democrat, and the only person who gained votes was Bob Riley, the Republican."
A number of analyses of the competing claims were undertaken at the time, with conflicting results. In one such study, Auburn University
Auburn University
Auburn University is a public university located in Auburn, Alabama, United States. With more than 25,000 students and 1,200 faculty members, it is one of the largest universities in the state. Auburn was chartered on February 7, 1856, as the East Alabama Male College, a private liberal arts...
political scientist James H. Gundlach concluded that a detailed analysis of the returns, compared with 1998 results and returns from undisputed counties, "strongly suggests a systematic manipulation of the voting results." The Gundlach study also suggested a mechanism by which this could have been effected, and proposed a conclusion that Siegelman won. An earlier analysis reported by the Associated Press, using a less sophisticated comparison of gubernatorial and legislative returns, was claimed to indicate that the revised returns were more accurate, and that Riley probably won. The Gundlach paper offers a refutation of the conclusions of the Associated Press study.
Largely as a result of this controversy, the Alabama Legislature
Alabama Legislature
The Alabama Legislature is the legislative branch of the state government of Alabama. It is a bicameral body composed of the Alabama House of Representatives, with 105 members, and the Alabama Senate, with 35 members...
later amended the election code to provide for automatic, supervised recounts in close races. Riley took office January 20, 2003.
External links
- 2002 Election information at sos.state.al.us
- Certified election results at sos.state.al.us