Photo by Erin Nelson
Jefferson County Courthouse
The Jefferson County Courthouse is in Birmingham, Alabama.
The Jefferson County Election Commission has set the election date for the County Commission District 5 seat left vacant by Steve Ammons’ departure to become CEO of the Birmingham Business Alliance.
The special election is scheduled to be held on July 18, and candidates have until June 27 to file qualifying papers to appear on the ballot. There are no Democratic or Republican primaries for this election. All candidates who properly qualify will be on the same ballot.
To qualify, a candidate must file a statement of candidacy with the Jefferson County Probate Judge’s Office and a petition signed by at least 100 qualified electors in Jefferson County Commission District 5, which includes parts of Hoover, Homewood, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Birmingham and Leeds.
As of Tuesday, no one had filed qualifying papers with the probate judge’s office, an election clerk said. However, former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Mike Bolin, who lives in Vestavia Hills, has announced he plans to run for the County Commission seat.
Bolin, a Republican, was first elected as the Jefferson County probate judge in 1988 and re-elected to that position in 2000. In 2004, he was elected statewide as an associate justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and served three terms.