Alabama law, under Title 17, allows political parties to choose their own nominee. There is more than one way to do it. A party can hold a primary. It can hold a convention. It can even allow its Executive Committee to select the nominee directly.

That matters.

If a party chose to let its Executive Committee select the nominee, then only a small group of people would have a voice in that decision. That is not what most of us want. I serve on my party’s State Executive Committee, and I can tell you plainly, the vast majority of us do not want to limit that decision to a small group. We want participation from across the state.

That is why I support the primary process.

But before we go any further, people need to understand something that is often overlooked.

Not every time you show up to vote is the same.

When you vote in a primary, you are not voting someone into office. You are participating in a selection process. You are helping a political party select who will represent that party on the ballot. No office is filled when a primary ends.

When you show up to vote in the fall, that is when the office is actually filled. That is when a final decision is made about who will hold that position. That is the Constitutional Article 1 election. Every Alabamian has the opportunity to participate in that election, just like every Alabamian has the opportunity to participate in a primary by choosing which party they want to take part in.

Those are two different events with two different purposes.

The primary is about selecting a nominee. The Constitutional Article 1 election is about choosing who gets the job.

Right now in Alabama, we do not have true closed primaries. When you show up to vote in a primary, you are asked to choose a Republican ballot or a Democrat ballot. Once you choose, you can only vote in that party’s primary for that election cycle. You cannot vote in both.

But here is the problem.

You do not have to actually be part of that party to participate in selecting its nominee.

That means people who do not truly identify with a party can still step into that party’s primary and influence the outcome. It means Democrats and others can cross over into Republican primaries with one goal in mind: to weaken conservative candidates. They are not there to support conservative values. They are there to dilute them. They are there to push the most liberal candidate forward, to tip the scales, and to make sure the candidate who best represents conservative voters is not the one who wins. That is not participation. That is manipulation of the process.

If the primary is simply a party choosing its nominee, then it only makes sense that the people making that decision should belong to that party.

That is not exclusion. That is fairness and transparency. When Alabama voters show up to hire the person for the job, a closed primary would improve transparency. Alabama voters would know they were voting for actual conservatives and not RINOs.

There are Democrats, and some hard left-leaning people who call themselves Independents, making the argument that moving to a closed primary is an attempt by party elites to disenfranchise Alabama voters.

That couldn’t be further from the truth.

As a State Executive Committee member, I am about as far from an elite or a party boss as you are going to find. I get up every morning in the dark and go to work before the chickens wake up. I punch a time clock for a living. Alabama voters deserve a process that is as fair, transparent, and democratic as possible, and that is why we support the primary process.

Right now, our primary process is not fair, transparent, or democratic because it allows people who are not part of the party to participate in selecting that party’s nominees.

The Alabama House has done its job and passed HB541, Alabama’s SAVE Act. Now it is time for the State Senate to do the same.

Pass HB541 this session and protect the integrity of Alabama’s primaries.

The primary belongs to the party and each party should be selecting its own nominees without outside influence. If the legislator doesn’t want to do this, then maybe the party should explore a new nominating process entirely. The primary and general election are not the same and they should not be treated the same. The general election is the real election.

And it is time Alabama law reflects that common sense.

We want Republicans across Alabama to have a voice in selecting Republican nominees. That is what a primary is supposed to do.

A closed primary does not take that voice away. It protects it.

It ensures that Republicans choose Republican nominees, Democrats choose Democrat nominees, and every voter still has a say in the fall when it is time to actually elect someone to office.

Every party should be allowed to choose its own nominee without interference from members of another political party.

That is not complicated. It is common sense.

The primary is a selection process. The Constitutional Article 1 election is the real election.

They are not the same, and they should not be treated the same.

Clint Grantham is an aircraft mechanic, Coffee County Commissioner, Alabama Republican Executive Committee member and a member of the Coffee County Republican Executive Committee.