Election Day is underway today but a whole lot of Georgians have already cast their ballots in this year’s primaries. As of last Wednesday, over 565,000 people have already cast their ballots – a 153% increase from the same point in the early voting period in 2018 and a 189% increase in the same point in the early voting period in 2020, according to the Secretary of State’s office.
Besides those high profile races, Georgians selecting either a Republican or Democratic primary ballot will be asked a hand full of questions to gauge interest on an issue and help guide issues to focus on going forward. Partisan ballot questions are not new in Georgia but they are probably new for voters who may have moved to Georgia from another state. Marc Hyden is the director of state government affairs at the R Street Institute and notes that very few states allow these kinds of questions.
These questions amount to perhaps the largest and most direct polling available to the state’s political parties. Responses are not binding in any way but they can help to shape messaging on an issue or guide the amount of attention paid to a certain topic. Some of the questions may be worded in a way that may illicit responses in a certain direction, a leading question, or they may be added as a way to prove to a party’s primary voters that the party is paying attention to a certain issue. For the most part, none of the questions from either party are a surprise.
The Democratic questions are largely in the news frequently, such as student loan issues or protecting voting rights. The responses are thus often uninteresting, but readers should take note of the responses to at least question number eight, dealing with marijuana legalization. Georgia Democrats are composed of a large number of African-American voters, typically more conservative on a range of issues than some of the more liberal voters, the type that would support Bernie Sanders in a primary for instance. Thus the response to a more social issue like that in Georgia could make for an interesting data point.
The full list of Democratic Party ballot questions are below:
- Should the United States remove obstacles to economic advancement by forgiving all student loan debt?
- Should all Georgians have access to paid parental leave following the birth or adoption of a child?
- Should every three- and four-year-old in Georgia be given the opportunity to attend a high-quality preschool free of charge?
- Should Georgia voters have the right to gather signed petitions to directly place questions on the ballot, whether to change the law or poll the public?
- Should families earning less than $150,000 per year receive an expanded tax credit to help cover the costs of raising children?
- Should the State of Georgia expand access to health care for over half a million Georgians by utilizing federal funds to expand Medicaid?
- Should the State of Georgia expand voter access by increasing early voting opportunities, allowing same-day voter registration, removing obstacles to voting by mail, and installing secure ballot drop boxes, accessible at all times, through Election Day?
- Should marijuana be legalized, taxed, and regulated in the same manner as alcohol for adults 21 years of age or older, with proceeds going towards education, infrastructure, and health care programs?
- Should the State of Georgia incentivize the development of clean, renewable energy sources to support America’s energy independence?
