Legislators are already talking about bringing back the incumbent protection policy:
State Rep. Austin Scott said he expects legislators to discuss tightening runoff guidelines in the wake of the surprising showing by Democrat Jim Martin that forced a Dec. 2 showdown with Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss. He also said he was considering whether to draft a measure that would shorten Georgia’s 45-day advance voting period.
[...]
Republicans could also overhaul election rules that now require a runoff if none of the candidates earn more than 50 percent of the vote.Scott and a slew of House Republican leaders unsuccessfully proposed lowering the bar to 45 percent last year, and he said the provision could resurface from legislators concerned about the mounting costs of runoffs.
Statewide runoffs have cost tens of thousands of dollars in the past, and the Dec. 2 contest could top $100,000.
“The counties have asked for that 45 percent threshold because of the cost of elections,” Scott said.
Georgia partisans have changed runoff guidelines twice in recent years.
The then-ruling Democrats passed legislation after Republican Paul Coverdell ousted Democratic U.S. Sen. Wyche Fowler in a 1992 runoff that set the threshold for avoiding a general election runoff at 45 percent.
But after Republicans took control of the Legislature in 2004, they changed the law again to require candidates to earn more than 50 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff.
I expected this. It came up last year and Decaturguy and I raised holy hell about it. I suggested an alternative in Instant Runoff Voting.
IRV is the best way to avoid the cost of a runoff without being partisan.
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For the IRV thing, you all probably already know this, but your laboratory is Pierce County (home to Tacoma and its famous aroma) in Washington State.
How about getting rid of the worthless partisan primary elections and just adopt the Louisiana style of elections.
If the Republicans adopt this, every Libertarian vote will be a vote for the Democrats and every vote for a Green (if they ever get on the ballot) will be a vote for the Republicans.
Elections are actually something the state is SUPPOSED TO BE DOING as opposed to the millions spent on ridiculous programs like Go Fish and all the othe pork.
Why not have the sitting governor just select all members of the government. Just think how much money that would save.
No wonder Republicans have been getting thrown out from coast to coast. If you can’t put up decent candidates, just limit the voter’s choices. I was going to vote for Saxby this time, but it is clear the Republican party doesn’t want my vote.
Oh, as for shortening the early voting, I am all for it.
Shorten the time for early voting? I would think that would be very, very unpopular for almost all Georgians. What could possibly be his motivation for proposing such a scheme? Could it be too many Democrats voted early?
If you are an incumbent and you can’t get 50% 1 votes, then maybe you ought to take a look and rethink whether you should be in the Legislature or not.
You can’t restrict candidates from the ballot and then say the winner only needs 45%. The instant runoff idea is an intriguing one that I think we should look in to0.
As for early voting, the GOP got it’s butt whipped. We need to develop an early voting strategy. The Dems had one and used it effectively.
I will say that 45 days of early voting is a very taxing process on Elections Office employees. When Elections Officials get exhausted they’re more likely to make mistakes. That needs to be considered.
The reason that I am against the extended early voting is that too much can happen in that last 45 days that could very well change the outcome of the election. In days past, 45 days out is too far for debates to have already been held for lots of local races.
If having an extra long voting period is such a great idea, why not open the polls the day after the primary is over. Of course you partisan hacks, like Decaturguy, only support or oppose things based on the perceived benefit or harm to his party.
i remember in 96 when a lot of states were starting to experiment w/ mail in voting –one of the few good things the phil gramm prez campaign did was target those mail in states–he ended up finshing 4th in the south dakota primary even though he had long dropped out by the time it rolled around and did not receive any of the vote on the actual primary date…
I’m gonna vote for Sarah Palin for President in 2012, when I go get my Saxby Runoff ballot.
The GOP did get its butt whipped on early voting because we were still doing the whole 72hr effort. Really we needed a 336 hr effort. And, I still contend long lines in Gwinnett and other areas acted to suppress turnout for those of us who actually had jobs and things to do.
Chris,
You should look at her Gretta interview. I like her personally, and think she has a place in the future in politics, but I do not see her as a President. Senator could be a possibility, Governor seems to work well, but until she proves herself on her own, I am withholding support. She does have a few years to develop, though.
Of course you partisan hacks, like Decaturguy, only support or oppose things based on the perceived benefit or harm to his party.
Huh? The Republican leaders in the State Legislature just a couple of years ago proposed and voted for the extended early voting period. They thought it was a great idea because it would give their base, who had a history of using early and absentee voting more than the Democratic base, and thought it would give their party an advantage.
Now, immidiately after this election, where Democrats saw gains, particularly among early voters, those same Republican leaders want to change the law. Eric Johnson wants to end early voting all together and Austin Scott wants to shorten the period of time. And not because “too much can happen in that last 45 days,” but they have gone back to the potential for “voter fraud.”
Again, huh? I thought the voter ID law was supposed to take care of that.
If anyone is being a “partisan hack” on this issue, it is the Republican leadership.
But, of course, this is going to go nowhere, because it will be extremely unpopular among their constituents.
Oh, and the incumbent Republican U.S. Senator fails to get 50% of the vote in the general election, so they want to change the law to require the winner to get only 45%.
Again, who is the partisan hack here?
Decatur,
I do not like partisan hackery on the left or the right. I have just denounced the GOP for trying to muck with the election laws because Saxby is in a runoff. On this board, you, as well as a number of others on the left and the right, look at every issue through the prism of how it can hurt your opponent or help your side before deciding if you are for or against something.
How about ciriticizing the Democrats for once? If you really want that party to improve, how about working to improve it instead of just trying to tear the Republicans down?
How about ciriticizing the Democrats for once? If you really want that party to improve, how about working to improve it instead of just trying to tear the Republicans down?
You obviously haven’t followed me for the close to 4 years that I’ve been blogging as I have been one of the biggest critics of the inept DPG out there. I have also been a huge critic of Dubose Porter, calling for his resignation as Democratic Leader on several occasions, as well as calling out Democratic members of for some of their stupid votes. I was also heavily critical of the campaigns that Cathy Cox and Mark Taylor ran, and voted for neither of them and voted for the Libertarian in the general. And I have on many occasions criticized the Democratic Party for failing to run candidates in winnable races or getting behind losers (like, say, Keith Gross) in winnable races.
Seriously DG.
The worst thing for a political party is to have an incompetent opposition party (See: Republican Party 2000-2006).
Chris,
I was going to add that. Half the reason why the Democratic and Republican parties are so bad is that their counterparts are bad. Why sprint at full spead if you are running against someone with shin splints?
Victory doesn’t go to the competent party, it goes to the least incompetent party. Congrats Democrats, You’re only slightly less incompetent that the GOP (Of course we are both light years ahead of the minor parties in being less incompetent).
Doug,
I wouldn’t confuse the motives of the dim bulbs in the GA legislature who are using Saxby’s runoff as an excuse to do what they wanted to do last cycle with why you should or should not vote for Saxby.
The Republicans in the GA legislature would do well to remember that one of the key motives for voter anger when the Gov’s office and State Senate went Republican was the long list of self-serving changes to voting laws and district maps that the dems pushed through.
Icarus,
It may just be a knee jerk reaction on my part, which means i will probably carry throuogh on voting for Saxby in the run-off as I promissed. I am just about fed up with the Republican party, though. How many stupid things do they have to propose before enough is enough. The majority requirement on election is probably the soundest election policy in the nation. Then to use the excuse of how much runoffs cost. Elections are a tiny fraction of what the state has no problem blowing through each and every year on frivalities.
I would much rather them junk the primary election, which is to the sole benefit of political parties and just have a LA style election.
Doug,
If they were worried about the cost of run-offs, then they should end the practice of refunding 75% of a candidate’s qualifying fee back to the political party the candidate belongs to.
Chris, do they keep it all for independents?
I doubt Bubba MacDonald is in favor of removing the 50% 1 vote needed to avoid a runoff
Doug, I believe 100% of independent qualifying fees are kept by the state.
That sounds fair.
I wonder if there are grounds for a federal equal protection suit in that?
It would be nice if Federal judges would stop acting like Republicans and Democrats and more like neutral arbitors of law.
independents don’t have to run in primaries…and i thought the qualifying fee was split 50/50? i guess that’s not accurate?
i know for the local races, our local gop actually had to conduct the qualifying to get their share of the fee, but this is hardly an area of expertise of mine…
drjay,
Do you mean to say the fact that they do not have to run in a primary is a reason to cheat them out of their qualifying fees? If there is no primary, the government does not have to run a special election to accommodate them. The one and only reason for the primary is to benefit only the Republican and Democratic Parties. They should be paying for every single last dollar of those elections, or ballot access laws should be made more lenient.
no doug that’s not what i mean and chris and i may be talking about 2 different things–so i may be completely off base-but the way qualifying fees were explained to me for partisan offices was that the parties collected the fees and then submitted half the proceeds to the state to conduct the primaries, not the other way around–i may be grossly misinformed, but that is what i thought i understood to be the case, which is what i meant by indy’s don’t have to run in primaries
There may be a difference in qualifying fees for General and Primary races.
I _know_ the LP gets 75% of their candidate’s fees refunded to them. I also know the county GOP parties get a cut of candidates who qualify for county office.
I know independents pay the same, as the independent candidates for the US House all had to pay the same fee (I think around $3,000) before they even submitting their qualifying petitions.
Perhaps if either the petition requirement or the draconian qualifying fee was removed we wouldn’t have a majority of races virtually unopposed.
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