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Thursday, October 30, 2008
On the topic of Karen Handel and extended hours for early voting
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The argument over whether Georgia should extend early voting to the weekend is showing no signs of cooling off.
In today’s AJC, Secretary of State Karen Handel made her argument against it:
[E]ven if the authority existed —- which it does not —- Georgia is covered under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which means that any changes in election procedures must be “precleared” by the U.S. Department of Justice before they can be implemented….
The facts are that Georgia voters enjoy perhaps the broadest ballot access of any state in the nation. Thanks to the 45 days of early and advance voting, approximately 1.5 million citizens have already cast ballots, and this is with the photo ID law in effect. By most measures, this would be considered a success. Even compared to Florida, our voters have much more time to vote.
…. Maybe if Florida had followed our lead, Gov. Charlie Crist may not have had to declare a state of emergency and ask counties to stay open longer and over the weekend.
According to the NYT’s blog, The Caucus, North Carolina — like Georgia, a Voting Rights state — just announced that polls would be open for four hours on Saturday:
The emergency decision affects “one-stop” registration and voting sites in the state’s 100 counties, which have experienced long lines since opening on Oct. 16. The sites can now stay open four hours later, until 5 p.m., on Saturday.
According to The Associated Press, more than 1.7 million people, just under a third of the state’s registered voters, had cast ballots by Wednesday evening in the surprise swing state.
In Georgia, an unsigned editorial on InsiderAdvantage, founded by Matt Towery, is the most flammable item on the topic out there today. It accuses Handel of digging a “Katherine Harris-style hole.”
But while Democrats have been the loudest in their demands for more time to cast early votes, the IA piece makes the argument from a Republican point of view:
GOP voters vote before work - impossible given the current lines - or after work - sorry, parking lot full; skip the vote. As it stands, her unwillingness to extend voting hours will guarantee big problems for McCain and Chambliss.
Makes you wonder why someone would want the job of running Georgia’s elections. What used to be a three- or four-month sprint has turned into a 45-day slog, with several million on-site observers.
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Atlanta not bowled over by Obama’s 30-minute ad; cost of ads during Georgia-Florida hits $1,000 a second
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Some notes on the intersection of TV and Georgia politics:
— Metro Atlanta didn’t prove to be star-struck by last night’s 30-minute TV commercial featuring Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
See the overnight Nielsen chart here, posted on the rating service’s blog. Atlanta scored toward the bottom of major TV markets — 43rd out of 53. Roughly 426,000 households here tuned in.
Much can be explained by the fact that the half-hour ad wasn’t carried on WSB-TV, which has the biggest footprint in this market. My AJC colleague Rodney Ho also points out that the Neilson survey didn’t cover BET, which draws well here.
That said, the top markets that tuned into Obama were significant, from a political perspective: They included the battleground states of Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania (this preceded the final innings of the World Series, after all) and Missouri.
— If you’re a political junkie watching the Georgia-Florida game Saturday afternoon, consider tallying up all of the campaign ads you see during the broadcast. Then multiply the total by $30,000.
That’s how much WGCL, the CBS affiliate in Atlanta, will make off politicians buying air time to run 30-second spots, according to my AJC colleague Ben Smith. Math majors will note that this runs to $1,000 a second.
Advertising rates vary widely depending on the time of day, the popularity of the program and the overall size of the audience for each television station.
But $1,000 a second for air time is significant change. By comparison, WGCL’s prime time ad rates run between $4,000 and $12,000 for a 30-second spot.
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A surfeit of undecided black voters in the U.S. Senate race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com, a Democratic site — though not rabidly so, makes this statistical point today about polls in Georgia’s U.S. Senate race:
Very quick observation about Georgia’s senate race, which along with California’s Proposition 8, may be the thing to watch on Election Night in the event of an Obama blowout. The polls, from what I can tell, are showing a fairly high undecided vote among the African-American population. Rasmussen’s most recent poll, which had Saxby Chambliss up by two, shows that 12 percent of black voters are undecided in the senate race. Were those voters to split 4:1 to Jim Martin, that would be worth a net of around 2 points to him, making the race a tie. SurveyUSA, likewise, shows a higher rate of undecideds among black voters (7%) than among whites (3%).
Related thought: it’s very difficult to imagine what a Chambliss-Obama voter looks like. It’s pretty easy to imagine what a McCain-Martin voter looks like. So if the Georgia polls have Obama down by 4 or 5 points, but Martin down by 2 or 3 points (as they do), something doesn’t quite seem right; I’d think the gap should be a bit wider.
Basically, I think this race is a true toss-up rather than a Lean R. African-American voters might be unfamiliar with Jim Martin, who didn’t become the nominee until August, but the ‘D’ beside his name is worth a lot.
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Georgia Supreme Court: Powell will stay on ballot in PSC race
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In a unanimous decision, the Georgia Supreme Court today affirmed the place of Democrat Jim Powell on the Tuesday ballot as a candidate for Public Service Commission, rebuffing Secretary of State Karen Handel.
Handel had appealed a Fulton County Superior Court ruling that sided with Powell, and overturned her decision that found Powell ineligible to run based on his residency.
Powell is running against Republican Lauren “Bubba” McDonald, a former PSC chairman, for the open seat left by Republican Angela Speir. In an election already showing a surge of Democratic votes as a result of the presidential contest, the high court’s decision opens the opportunity for Democrats to reclaim one of five seats on the utility commission.
Handel argued that a homestead exemption Powell had claimed in Cobb County was irrefutable proof of legal residence. The PSC seat at issue requires residency in north Georgia, where Powell declared he was shifting his household.
The court found that the Georgia code lists 15 specifications for determining a residence, of which seven applied to Powell. , “The Secretary’s decision did not take into account any of the applicable rules other than the homestead exemption rule.
“We agree with the superior court that the secretary committed an error of law that authorizes reversal of the secretary’s decision,” wrote Justice Robert Benham, for the entire court.
Stan Wise, a 13-year member of the PSC, called for the Legislature to rethink the concept of district residency:
“The PSC residency law has only been on the books for ten years, yet there have already been three challenges heard by the Georgia Supreme Court [Mac Barber, Bobby Baker, and Jim Powell]. The law has proven to be both unenforceable through the judiciary and impractical considering some members maintain a district home and another near the office.
“While the initial intent of the law had some merit - that being to encourage more rural representation; the effect is that four-fifths of the population is prohibited from running for an open seat. The General Assembly should repeal the residency requirement.”
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Marshall decides to play in the Atlanta media market
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jim Marshall must have money to burn. Either that, or the 8th District incumbent’s congressional campaign lacks common sense.
In the past week, the Macon Democrat has ordered more than $210,851 in 30-second spots to air on Atlanta TV stations. That means viewers all across north Georgia can see them.
But Marshall’s message matters only to voters in four counties: Butts, Jasper, Newton and Monroe. The 18 other counties in Marshall’s central Georgia district get their TV feeds from Macon and Albany.
