As InsiderAdvantage reported on Monday, early voting has started for this year’s primary. There are some COVID-19 peculiarities around voting rules, fewer polling places, strict social distancing guidelines etc. But once you get in that “booth,” what happens then?
Astute readers may have noticed there is a presidential primary going on. Or there was for a while. Technically there still is but between zero Republican challengers in Georgia and the fact that every Democrat not named Joe Biden has dropped out of the race, that particular ballot question has suddenly become not that exciting.
However, there is still a lot of action on those ballots. The Republican ballot is pretty straight forward. Senator David Perdue is not facing any challengers either, nor are two Republican Public Service Commission members, or the Republican choosing to take on longtime Atlanta-area Congressman John Lewis (D-5 GA).
The rest of the races up for grabs are judicial, these are ostensibly nonpartisan and notoriously difficult for voters to know much about the candidates. Nearly all of these are also unopposed. There is a race for the Supreme Court of Georgia, with former Republican Representative Beth Beskin challenging former Republican Representative Charlie Bethel – the current incumbent.
Over on the Democratic side, the ballot gets a lot longer. Despite all those dropouts, there are still 12 names to choose from in the presidential race. In the race to challenge the aforementioned Senator Perdue, Sarah Riggs Amico, Jon Ossoff, Teresa Tomlinson and four other people that are unlikely to pull off an upset are available for choosing. Three Democrats are running to be the Atlanta Judicial Circuit District Attorney, including the incumbent Paul Howard who recently made some news for a controversial payment of $125,000 from the City of Atlanta. The GBI has opened an investigation.
One of the more interesting parts – and least known prior to stepping foot into the booth – are the “Party Questions” chosen by Republican and Democrat officials to get a feeling from their voters on certain issues. These can be used to gauge how hard to push on certain issues or can be more mechanical in nature related to party rules.
This year, the Republicans have three party questions. First, should the legislature expand education options by allowing a student’s state education dollars to follow that student to their school of choice, rather than the current system where the money flows to the student’s districted school. Second, should voting in the Republican primary be limited to voters who have registered as Republicans? Third, should candidates for the board of education be required to declare their political party?
So, one legislative issue and two more process oriented questions.
On the Democratic side, it’s again a bit more complicated. There is one question about whether the state to work to stop climate change – though the question itself is vague enough to likely get near 100 percent “Yes” responses without a clear legislative action to follow. There are questions about limiting wasteful plastics, allowing same-day registration for voting, ending cash bail and restoring the voting rights for those that committed a crime but completed their sentence. There is also a question about forming an independent commission to draw district lines. Something that would have little chance of passage as long as Republicans control the state legislature. And if that were to flip, there might be a lot less support among Democrats for the whole independent commission thing.
No matter which ballot you draw, there is plenty to do. Happy voting!
