Post-Election Day Roundup

A few thoughts that stand out from yesterday’s election:

How swift and broad Gwinnett’s seachange is continues to astound me. By now I’m sure everyone’s seen that there were some 30,000 more votes cast in the Democratic Presidential Primary than Republican. And Georgia’s longest-serving school board member is likely going to lose her reelection bid.

While on the topic of Gwinnett, I find it odd that Secretary of State Raffensberger and Speaker Ralston were quick to issue Fulton and Dekalb counties their well-deserved lashings. But both seem to be mum on voting issues in Gwinnett and Chatham counties (Thanks, Ellynn!)

Almost assuredly what will get lost in the discussion is Chatham County Board of Elections member Antwan Lang’s assessment: “As a leader, I will always take responsibility for whatever the, lack of, that we have done. I will not blame our poll workers; I will not blame the secretary of state for example. I blame myself for many of the issues that have happened because maybe I wasn’t as vigilant as I should have been making sure our poll workers were trained properly.”

The recreminations started early and they flew fast. I’m willing to bet few people have read the relevant statues spelling out the Secretary of State’s duties here so we’re all kind of making things up as we go. While the counties are responsible for running elections, allowing Georgia’s first-, second-, fourth- and fifth-most populated counties to flounder along seems less than ideal.

It’s time for DA Howard to go. Thankfully that may happen.

Can we abolish primary runoffs? I’m fine with General Election runoffs. But, for example, the cost of having a runoff for the Senate seat when Ossoff has more than three times the number of votes that former mayor Tomlinson does, and Ossoff is 1.4% short of the threshold is absurd. As a philosophical note: primaries are supposed to be party affairs–the state should absolutely seek to limit it’s costs and resposnbilities.

Speaking of primary runoffs: HD-42 better not go to a runoff or else.