The high turnout in Georgia’s second round election, which cemented Democrat dominance in the US Senate, has reignited debate over the state’s controversial election law for 2021 and could lead to further electoral rule changes in the Republican-controlled legislature state lead year.
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More than 3.5 million people cast their ballots in the Dec. 6 runoff, equivalent to about 90% of the general election turnout and well above the turnout for typical runoffs. Voter turnout in the midterm elections was in record numbers.
According to prominent Republicans in Georgia, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the 2021 law was supposedly intended to quash votes in this increasingly competitive state. However, those numbers contradict that claim, they said.
“There is nothing wrong with voter suppression,” Raffensperger said in an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins this week, a day after Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock won re-election in the first presidential election cycle following the implementation of Georgia’s electoral law.
However, the 2021 law, passed after Democrat victories two years ago, is still being criticized by Georgia’s Democrats and suffrage organizations for presenting numerous electoral obstacles.
And they said that despite tremendous efforts by voters and activists to overcome both recent and ongoing obstacles to voting in this formerly deeply conservative state, turnout has skyrocketed.
Warnock reiterated a point he made frequently on the campaign trail during his victory speech on Tuesday: “Just because people have had to endure long lines winding around buildings doesn’t mean voter suppression doesn’t exist. It simply means that you, the people, have chosen not to have your voices silenced.”
After winning the runoff in the 2020 election cycle, the victory of Warnock and fellow Democratic senator Jon Ossoff on Tuesday cemented Georgia’s status as a key battleground state. President Joe Biden won Georgia in that election, becoming the first Democratic candidate to do so in three decades.
Supporters of voting rights have claimed that the 2021 legislation has made voting more difficult in a number of ways, including by limiting the number and location of ballot boxes, introducing new ID requirements for mail-in ballots and removing the nine-week expiration window in the 2020 election to four weeks. These changes also made early voting more difficult, resulting in long lines during the early voting period.
In addition, the voter registration deadline fell on November 7, the day before the general election, and before Georgians were sure the race would go to a runoff, because neither Warnock nor his Republican opponent, Herschel Walker, had the required 50% of the Votes had reached vote to directly win the general election.
A study of Georgia’s foreign minister’s data, conducted by Catalist, a company that provides statistics, predictive analysis and other support to Democrats, academics and charity advocacy groups, found that in the 2020 election cycle at least 23,000 people who registered after Election Day took part in the Senate runoff in January 2021.
County election officials could only allow an early in-person vote on the Saturday after Thanksgiving because Warnock and the Democrats won a last-minute legal victory.
State election officials resisted voting that day, arguing that it is against Georgia law to vote on a Saturday if the preceding Thursday or Friday is a state holiday.
Commenting on the new restrictions, Kendra Cotton, CEO of voting rights organization New Georgia Project Action Fund, noted: “It’s death by a thousand cuts. You’re not trying to hit the carotid artery, so you bleed to death immediately. It’s those little nicks, so you start to get anemic before you pass out.”
“It’s a margin game. I wish people would stop pretending that SB202’s purpose is to disenfranchise the masses. Joe Biden won that state by a little under 12,000 votes. I can guarantee you that there are more than 12,000 people in this state who were eligible to vote in this election and could not,” she added.
Even Jarah Cotton, Cotton’s 21-year-old daughter, fell into the trap.
The younger Cotton, a senior at Harvard University, claimed she intends to cast a ballot-by-mail in November’s general election, but misinterpreted a new law in Georgia that requires her to submit her online ballot-by-mail application “with a pen.” and ink” to print out and sign” before uploading it.
Jarah Cotton said in the runoff that she successfully submitted her absentee ballot application but didn’t receive it before she went on Thanksgiving break and returned to Powder Springs, Georgia.
She was able to participate in the runoff by attending the runoff in person thanks to a court decision that allowed voting on Saturday after Thanksgiving, but only after her family paid $180 to delay her trip back to Boston by a day .
“I don’t think it should be that difficult. It should be easier, but I think that reflects the voting process in Georgia,” Jarah Cotton said of her experience.
According to Gabriel Sterling, a chief operating officer in the Office of the Secretary of State, too many critics of the state’s electoral processes are comparing the 2022 election to how easy it was to cast a ballot during the pandemic in the 2020 election cycle as election officials across the state “put them skyward and Hell on the Move” to ensure the right to vote.
The fact that so many people voted in a four-week runoff shows “that the system works really well. The problem now is that it has become so politicized. I’ve been saying for 24 months now that both sides must stop arming the electoral administration,” he said in an interview with CNN on Friday.
According to pro-suffrage advocates, the state’s runoff system, first instituted in 1964, is a relic of the state’s terrible history of suppressing the right to vote. To prevent black Georgian-backed candidates from getting the majority of votes and winning outright, their original sponsor tried to guarantee this.
Unlike Georgia, where candidates must receive more than 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff, most states base their general election results on the candidate receiving the most votes.
According to a recent analysis by Kennesaw State University scholars, taxpayers will be left with $75 million on the hook for the Senate runoff in the 2020 election cycle.
Raffensperger suggested in the CNN interview earlier this week that the Republican-controlled General Assembly could review parts of the state’s election laws, including a possible reduction to 45% of the requirement to win a general election outright.
Additionally, he said he wants to work with counties to ensure more polling stations are accessible to reduce the long lines voters faced during the early voting stages in the runoff.
In addition, Raffensperger stated that lawmakers could consider using a rapid runoff method by precedence. Voters evaluate candidates in so-called immediate runoff elections according to preference.
Voters’ second preferences would be used to choose the winner if no candidate received more than 50% of the vote, eliminating the need for a second choice.
In light of Georgia’s truncated runoff schedule, state legislatures have introduced the quick runoff to a small portion of voters. those serving in the military and abroad in this year’s midterm elections.
“There will be a push for that in the coming legislative session,” in support of the immediate runoff, Better Ballot Georgia President Daniel Baggerman made the statement.
“It’s a big ask of voters” to show up for a runoff again “when there’s an easy way to get the same result,” he proclaimed.
Although Sterling acknowledged that “there needs to be a discussion about runoffs in general elections,” he expressed concern that the introduction of an immediate runoff system could result in the disenfranchisement of a significant segment of Georgians, who without a large number of Georgians may not be familiar with the process are reaching voters.
Relation:
Fredreka Schouten, CNN News, (December 10, 2022). “Heavy midterm turnout in Georgia sparks new debate over controversial election law”: The high turnout in Georgia’s runoff election that cemented Democrat control of the US Senate is sparking a new debate about the implications of the state’s controversial 2021 election law and could a new round of voting rule changes next year in the Republican-led state legislature.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/10/politics/runoff-sparks-debate-about-georgia-voting-law
