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Monday, November 3, 2008
Waiting and waiting for election results?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Begins now the wait… It could be Friday before we know who won Georgia, opines the shrewd analyst of all things political, Randy Evans, an Atlanta lawyer and member of the State Election Board.
Three reasons, he says:
Long lines could mean that some vote-counting won’t start until after 9 p.m. Polls close at 7, but those who are there can vote, however long it takes.
Some 242,522 absentee ballots have to be counted, starting at 7 a.m. on Election Day. The counters are sequestered. If there are questions of improper voting, or outright fraud, ballots can be challenged. This year 2.2 million votes were cast early, a figure that includes the absentees. In the George W. Bush-John Kerry race four years ago, 422,485 early votes were cast.
Finally, notes Evans, “there are the provisional ballots and the challenged ballots.” If somebody shows up without proper photo ID, for example, he casts a provisional ballot and has 48 hours to produce proper identification. Disputes to clear up eligibility can be time-consuming. If it’s close, Georgia may not know the results for days, he says.
With early voting and with the prospect of a historic outcome, blacks will undoubtedly vote in record numbers. Four years ago about 72 percent of black registered voters cast ballots; for whites, it was about 80 percent. Traditionally blacks, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic, turn out in lesser percentages than whites. That surely won’t be the case this year.
The impact could make for close races. In 2004, Bush won Georgia by almost 550,000 votes out of the 3.3 million cast. He defeated Kerry here 58-41, carrying 133 of Georgia’s 159 counties. Kerry carried 26, primarily Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton, a pocket of poor rural counties in Southwest Georgia and a smattering of counties running from Columbus, through Macon to Augusta.
Georgia gave Bush his second-highest vote margin, second only to Texas, where he won by 1.7 million.
Making up 550,000 margin for the conservative is ordinarily unlikely in Georgia, a state that has not voted for the Democrat in a presidential race since 1992. Bill Clinton won then by 14,000, but only because Ross Perot pulled 300,000 votes here. The lesson for Third Party voting is: Never again. The consequence of voting for protest and message candidates is that they don’t win — they enable the election of the less desirable candidate.
Ordinarily a known liberal can’t win statewide in Georgia. But that is changing. Blacks are on the verge of constituting 30 percent of registered voters. That’s usually the indicator of whether the electorate will chose a Democrat or a Republican. With a few exceptions, state House and Senate districts that are 30 percent black in registered voters are represented by Democrats.
Had Democrats done a better job of recruiting candidates, today might have been a big day. Instead, even with highly motivated Obama voters flocking to the polls, there’ll be no significant results to show for it under the Gold Dome.
At present Republicans control the Georgia House with 106 of the 180 seats. Democrats have 73. One vacancy exists. But 142 of the 180 seats — 81 Republican and 61 Democrats — are uncontested in the general election. Of the 38 that are, only four are open seats. Republicans are likely to lose seats, probably about five to seven. One Republican seat in Gwinnett, Newton and Rockdale, now held by Robert Mumford of Conyers, was abandoned without a fight because new residents had given it a solid Democratic majority.
In the State Senate, too, Republicans will retain control and it’s unlikely that more than one or two seats will be seriously contested. The GOP has a 34-22 majority. Only 18 seats are contested, 13 Republican and 5 Democrats. Many of the Democratic challenges are in solidly-Republican districts where they have no hope of winning.
In the Congressional races, the one that’s most competitive is in Middle Georgia, in the 8th Congressional District, where Democratic incumbent Jim Marshall is being challenged by the former commanding general of Robins Air Force Base, Rick Goddard. It’s a winnable district for a Republican, but about a third of the district’s registered voters are black and turnout will likely favor Marshall.
Those who have voted already, stay home. It’s one vote per person, not one vote per county or one vote per name.
Everybody else, go. Prove the pundits wrong.
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Remember 2004? It ain’t over.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Go vote.
As the polls were closing on election day four years ago, I sat with a group of George W. Bush campaign officials and supporters listening to reports of exit polls delivering the bad news. Bush was defeated. John Kerry had won the presidency.
Didn’t happen, of course. Within hours, the gloomy crowd of election night had turned jubilant.
It could happen again tomorrow night. Admittedly, the RealClearPolitics.com average of national polls puts Barack Obama up by 6.9 percentage points. But an Investor’s Business Daily poll released Sunday shows it to be a two-point lead, which is within the margin of error. Vote Tuesday.
Much has been made of the surge in early voting by presumed Democrats. But unless there’s massive fraud and people are voting more than once, it matters not one whit whether voters stood in line to vote early or whether they show up on Tuesday. As for me, I’ll vote Tuesday for John McCain and Saxby Chambliss. And I’ll cast my one real and 16 fraudulent ballots against Amendment #2, which invites Georgians to hand over our school taxes to politicians to dole out to favored developers.
I’ve been surprised incidentally at the number of people who suspect or believe that widespread fraud is committed in elections. The case has never been stronger for cross-checking county-to-county and for a foolproof voter ID system. Voters are on the verge of losing confidence in the integrity of the voting system — something ACORN has hastened nationally.
Here’s the last-minute charge: Vote. Pull it out for John McCain. And for goodness sakes, don’t let the Democrats get a filibuster-proof Senate. If they get it, we’ll get every social program and tax increase that Barack Obama has promised — and a judiciary that tilts left for another generation.
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