(Georgia Recorder) — Georgians will have one last opportunity Tuesday to head to the polls to vote in state and congressional primaries and a host of nonpartisan races on ballots all across the state.
During the three-week early voting period that concluded on Friday, more than 554,000 votes were cast, representing a statewide turnout of 8%. That’s a far cry from the nearly 800,000 votes cast during early voting in the 2022 primary.
The 2022 primary featured high-profile Republican races, including Herschel Walker’s runaway win in the primary for U.S. Senate and ex-U.S. Sen. David Perdue’s failed effort to defeat Gov. Brian Kemp.
While Tuesday’s primary lacks such top-of-the-ballot headliners, Tuesday’s election isn’t lacking in important races, including a number of partisan contests where the winning candidates will be heavy favorites in the Nov. 5 general election.
For many Georgians, Tuesday’s election will help determine who serves as their district attorney, county clerk, county commission and sheriff. Residents will also be able to vote on their state legislative races and settle the one contested Georgia Supreme Court seat on the ballot.
The League of Women Voters of Georgia sent an email urging the state’s 6.5 million registered voters to fill out the entire ballot Tuesday. A third of registered voters tend to skip down-ballot races, according to the U.S. Vote Foundation.
“Down ballot offices are the ones that keep communities on track and moving forward,” the League of Women Voters of Georgia’s said to their followers. “Most of governing happens far, far below president or governor or mayor. It happens at the school board, at the county commission, in the courts. If you think the office of coroner isn’t important, think about what they had to do during the pandemic. When they say that all politics is local, this is who they’re talking about.”
Election day monitoring
Several organizations will monitor hundreds of polling places throughout Georgia that will be open to voters from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Among those groups are Georgia’s Republican and Democratic parties, which will both have voter hotlines available for the public to report any election-related problems Tuesday.
“Lawyers will guide poll watchers through the appropriate election code and provide clarity on how various issue should be answered, resolved, or escalated,” Georgia GOP Chairman Josh McKoon wrote in an email to supporters Monday. “When escalation is necessary, HQ may contact the Secretary of State or the county election supervisors or take legal action.”
It was during the early voting period leading up to Tuesday’s primary that the Democratic Party’s trained volunteers gained first-hand experience with some of the issues that could become more prevalent in the November election.
Nearly 80,000 calls were handled by the party’s voter protection hotline in 2018, the year the hotline was established.
The call center’s volunteers are able to answer basic questions such as how to register to vote to responding to complaints about long voting lines and disputes with election staff over provisional ballots.
The call center was open during a tumultuous 2020 presidential election and is still dealing with the fallout that continues to shape Georgia election law four years later.
A host of election changes were signed into law by Kemp this month.
The state Democratic Party’s executive director, Tolulope Kevin Olasanoye, said the party is paying close attention to changes in rules that would make it easier for someone to challenge the eligibility of voters.
Olasanoye said that under SB 189, thousands of voter challenges will likely be filed leading into the November election based on unreliable data provided by right-wing groups.
“We no longer have to have a basis in fact to be able to challenge a voter’s ability to vote and that’s a real, real big problem,” he said.
“As I often say to our team, you want to always be able to play offense on the things you can anticipate and only be reacting to the things that you never saw coming,” Olasanoye said. “This bill creates an environment where we’re all going to be reacting to stuff in real time because nobody has ever worked in this sort of environment and I think that’s hugely problematic.”
Republican lawmakers contend that the new election law establishes clearer rules for contesting a voter’s status by defining the probable cause for filing a challenge, such as evidence of voting in two different states or having a nonresidential address listed as their primary residence.
What’s on the ballot?
Georgia is an open primary state that allows voters to choose either Republican, Democratic, or nonpartisan ballots when they arrive at the polls Tuesday.
A crowded field of five Republicans are vying to replace outgoing Congressman Drew Ferguson in the conservative District 3 that extends from the southern suburbs of Atlanta to the northern suburbs of Columbus.
Unless a candidate on Tuesday receives the 50% of votes needed to outright win the GOP primary, District 3 will be settled in a runoff on June 18.
Another significant race Tuesday is for a seat on the Georgia Supreme Court in which the candidate with the most votes wins. Justice Andrew Pinson is being challenged by John Barrow, who has turned the race into a battle over abortion rights.
Tuesday’s ballot in Fulton County also features two of the central characters connected to the felony racketeering and conspiracy case as former President Donald Trump and 14 remaining co-defendants are accused of illegally conspiring to overturn the 2020 election.
The embattled Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis faces Christian Wise Smith, who has served as Atlanta city solicitor and a Fulton County prosecutor, in the Democratic primary. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, the presiding judge in the Trump case, is being challenged by civil rights attorney Robert Patillo in the nonpartisan election.
For more information:
Georgia voters can call or text the Democratic Party of Georgia’s voter protection hotline anytime during voting hours Tuesday at 888-730-5816.
The Georgia Republican Party’s election integrity hotline can be reached Tuesday at 404-738-8393. Election related issues can also be reported at https://georgia.protectthevote.com/hc/en-us/requests/new.
