Ideally, late September ahead of a November election would not be the best time to schedule a new primary vote. Ideally, voters from a different district would not vote in the wrong representative’s district. Ideally. Unfortunately, all those things culminated in a new election being scheduled in December for State House District 28 when challenger Chris Erwin will face off against incumbent Representative Dan Gasaway.
For those that may not have been following, in the original election back in May, Gasaway lost the primary to Erwin by 67 votes. The problem was that district mapping mistakes caused voters to be given the wrong ballots. Some voters in District 10, represented by Rep. Terry Rogers, were given ballots for the District 28 race – and vice versa.
Gasaway challenged the lawsuit in court and on Wednesday, the specially appointed Judge David Sweat ruled that the number of mistakes and margin meant a new election is necessary. Gasaway’s attorney Jake Evans was pleased with the result. “I’m happy for Rep. Gasaway. It’s been a long, strenuous journey to get to this point,” said Evans. “I wish Rep. Gasaway the best of luck going forward in his campaign and I’m confident he’ll do well.”
Despite the election technically still being a primary, there is no Democrat in the race so the winner of the Republican primary will become the state representative for the northeast Georgia district. Evans and his client Gasaway had hoped that the new election date could be set for the regular November date but federal law requires 45 days notice before an election so voters living abroad – notably the military – are able to receive and return absentee ballots.
Georgia does have an unusual number of elections compared to some other states because of its rules regarding primaries and runoffs. Georgia requires a 50% majority for a candidate to win but other states only require a plurality.
Instant runoffs are another way some states avoid so many elections. In that type of election, voters rank candidates and candidates are eliminated according to the rankings. Georgia does not allow for instant runoffs and, according to a letter from Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp – who happens to be a governor candidate – the state’s current electronic voting machines couldn’t handle them anyway.
And since a judge also just ruled that it’s too late to replace those electronic voting machines ahead of the November elections this year, there’s no chance of that happening. The new District 28 election will presumably use those same machines.
Some media, and likely some Democrats, will attempt to make a connection between the Secretary of State’s office – the office of the aforementioned governor candidate Kemp – and the mistakes in the election. It remains somewhat unclear exactly what happened. With some previous problems related to voter and election data, Kemp will likely face some new questions going forward. Whether any of this will penetrate down to voters remains to be seen.
