At today’s Springville Chamber of Commerce meeting, Alabama Rep. Jim McClendon (R-50) said he talked with GOP head Mike Hubbard this morning concerning the possibility of Democrats voting in July’s governor’s race runoff.

Asked if Hubbard would be able to change the rules to not allow Democrats a chance to vote in the Republican runoff before the July 13 vote, McClendon responded “Yes. Absolutely.” He said that the issue will be taken up during the Republican Executive meeting on June 26.

While Bradley Byrne received the most votes in the state, he will still face a runoff against either Robert Bentley or Tim James. James is 202 votes shy of Bentley, according to uncertified numbers released after Tuesday’s primary election.

McClendon said that while no official solution has been made public yet, the GOP is looking into similar wording that the state Democratic Party uses to keep Republicans from voting in their primaries.

“The Republican primary and runoff is a party event. If the Republican Party wanted to, they could just say ‘This is our nominee.’ But we don’t do that,” McClendon said.

He said that the True Republican Political Action Committee, which funneled money from the Alabama Education Association opposing Byrne’s campaign shows that “the Democrats have already had their hand in this thing.”

Paul Hubbert, head of the AEA, is known to be the driving force behind the True Republican PAC. In this month’s Alabama School Journal, there were numerous articles against Byrne that charged him with being a candidate that would side against public school interests in the state, a charge Byrne’s campaign has denied.

Next week the state will officially certify the votes cast Tuesday. At that time, it is believed that Tim James will ask for a recount, which McClendon said could cost anywhere from $300,000 to $600,000 to conduct.

While Robert Bentley might not ask for a recount, McClendon said that it would be likely that he would have lawyers overseeing the recount in all 67 counties.

But McClendon wanted area voters to know that while the primary may have been close, that the runoff vote is just as—if not more—important. He said that it is projected that only 25 percent of the voters thatcast ballots in the primary would likely vote in the runoff.

“If you want your vote to count, vote in the runoff… your vote will count four times as much,” he said.