Senate Majority Leader Steve Gooch, a Dahlonega Republican, said, “I like the system we have that requires 50%.” There is not yet a clear consensus on which direction to go.”
Spills routinely cost Georgia taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, costs that could be avoided if they were eliminated, according to a recent study by researchers at Kennesaw State University. Electoral ballots usually have lower voter turnout than the first election.
Republican Secretary of State Brad Ravensperger wants lawmakers to pass legislation to prevent a runoff vote in future general elections, but he’s not specific what he wants instead. did not do it.
One option is to award the victory to the candidate who leads after the general election, regardless of whether they obtain a majority.
Another possibility is to introduce a system called instant run-off where voters choose a second candidate before the general election. Then, if a voter’s first choice does not end up among the top two candidates, votes for the second-choice candidate are counted, avoiding the need for another election.
An idea some Democrats like is to keep the runoff vote, but not immediately after the general election. and the early voting period should be extended.
Georgia’s voting law passed the 2021 run-off ballot four weeks after the first election, compared to nine weeks under previous rules.
Atlanta Democrat State Senator Sonya Halpern said it was “hard to question the timing” of the proposed runoff change after the Democrats’ recent victory. “It all depends on what the solution is. I don’t want to say, ‘Kick them out.’ ”
Recent election years have brought significant changes to Georgia’s voting laws, and this year may be no exception.
After the 2018 election, the legislature passed a bill to replace the state’s electronic voting machines with a system that prints paper ballots.
Then, after 2020, Senate Bill 202 restricted access to ballot drop boxes, required some additional steps to request absentee ballots, and allowed states to take over county election commissions. shortened the run-off period.
Stephanie Jackson Ali, policy director of the New Georgia Project Action Fund, a voting rights group, said, “Whenever something comes up for electoral reform, Georgians must collectively hold their breath. No. “Georgians deserve to go out and be done with it, but they are always cautious about what the actual plans will be.”
Republicans have dominated most of Georgia’s run-off votes since 1992, when Paul Cabadell swayed Democratic incumbent Waichi Fowler to win a seat in the US Senate. But the string of Republican victories came to an end in the 2020 election cycle when Warnock defeated US Senator Kerry Leffler and John Ossoff won the race against US Senator David Perdue.
For decades, black candidates have said Georgia’s runoff system is discriminatory.
When local Democrats were running the convention, they passed a law in 1964 calling for a runoff vote in nearly every constituency. The move prevented black voters from voting as a bloc to elect candidates with multiple votes.
After Fowler’s defeat, Democrats again changed state law to require only 45% of the vote to avoid a runoff. Once Republicans took control of Congress, she reinstated her 50% standard in 2005.
state. Rep. Alan Powell, a Hartwell Republican, has called for holding the runoff vote in an election if no candidate wins a majority to prevent third-party candidates from altering the election results. I said I like it.
“I still think we need 50% plus one. 100% of the vote can get someone into public office,” Powell said.
Democratic House Leader James Beverley, a Macon native, said he would be wary of any proposals to change the law governing spills.
“Never be altruistic in the world of politics. At least, that’s what their teams do most of the time,” Beverley said. “Then numbers matter a lot. 45%? 48%? If that number was 50% or less, Perdue would be a Senator right now.”
After Purdue won 49.8% of the vote in the 2020 general election, Ossoff won the runoff vote with a 50.6% majority. In this year’s runoff, Warnock received the most votes in both the general election and the runoff.
It is unclear which proposals will survive the run-off vote, and neither party’s leaders have agreed on a specific plan.
Lawmakers from both parties said they would consider a bill to change the runoff vote in the coming weeks after this year’s parliament begins on Jan. 9.
2022 US Senate
Raphael Warnock (Democrat), 51.4%. Herschel Walker (right), 48.6%
2020/2021 US Senate
Rafael Warnock (Democrat), 51%. Kelly Leffler (Republican), 49%
John Ossoff (Democrat), 50.6%. David Perdue (Republican), 49.4%
2018 Secretary of State
Brad Ravensperger (Republican), 51.9%. John Barrow (Democrat), 48.1%
2018 Public Service Commission District 3
Chuck Eaton (Republican), 51.7%. Lindy Miller (Democrat), 48.3%
