Alabama voters should take into consideration the three Republican members of the state Senate who bought into the governor’s scare tactics to prevent a constitutional amendment on whether to allow electronic bingo in the state.

On Wednesday a measure failed 18-16 of the needed majority to see the amendment on a special ballot in the November general election.

For all practical purposes, the issue is dead.

In a word, the three senators who voted against this constitutional amendment must not believe Alabama voters have enough sense to decide for themselves if they want to set up gambling in this state.

Those three senators must have missed the civics lesson in which this land is described as a democratic republic.

They seem more stuck in the mode of a aristocracy ruled by a select elite led by the Machiavellian tactics of Gov. Bill Riley.

And the voters of Alabama are the real losers in this particular game.