Voters who rejected a regional transportation tax Tuesday didn’t trust government to spend their money correctly. They thought its projects were all going downtown. They thought its projects were all going to the suburbs. They were tired of false promises. And they were simply short of money themselves with no desire for another tax.
Overall, voters sent a resounding message: “No.” But they spoke in thousand-part harmony.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s analysis of the vote results, telephone polling and interviews with voters at precincts Tuesday shows an array of negative views that the $8 million political campaign was unable to quell.
“In politics usually you say there’s a nail in the coffin,” said Mark Rountree, a pollster and political consultant who said he did not work in the campaign. “There was like a machine gun of nails in that coffin.”
Results are still being tallied, but according to preliminary counts, the T-SPLOST failed massively in metro Atlanta, 62 percent to 38 percent. It failed in every county in the region, even its voter-base counties that lean Democratic and are generally more open to taxes. It passed in the city of Atlanta, according to the campaign.
Turnout was massive. People who were never expected to come out to vote did, and they came out for T-SPLOST. The campaign expected perhaps 350,000 to 400,000 voters, a small enough number that the campaign’s effort to bring out new supporters had a chance to swing the tide. Preliminary results show 670,000 voted.
An overwhelming issue that cut across political lines was distrust. In AJC polling, 91 percent of those who intended to vote against the referendum said they did not trust the government to properly execute the plan or to shut down the tax when promised.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen to the money,” said Roswell resident Donald Capdau, 73, who voted against it. “On Ga. 400, they promised the tolls would come off, and they’re not coming off until next year. Once you get a tax on, it’s very hard to get it off.”
The transportation sales tax would have been eliminated after 10 years, unless voters decided to renew it, according to law. But voters told pollsters and reporters that after the state reneged on promises to take the toll down last year, they became convinced the government couldn’t be trusted to end the tax.
The campaign’s supporters knew that was an issue. The week before the vote, Gov. Nathan Deal came forward with an announcement: The toll on Ga. 400 would come down after all, in 2013.
An AJC poll showed the announcement backfired with many voters. Rountree, a shareholder in a company that did social media work for the campaign, thinks the announcement and its timing were “catastrophically received” given the timing, he said. “That hurt. I think that was widespread.”
The lagging economy cannot be discounted when asking voters for a tax. Campaign officials acknowledge the other issues, especially the trust in government, but say the economy was an overriding factor in Tuesday’s result.
“We always knew the economy was the biggest challenge we faced,” said Paul Bennecke, the campaign’s strategist. “That’s why we talked a lot about jobs.” The program was expected to create jobs not only in building the projects, but also by making business more efficient after transportation improved.
However, in an AJC poll before the vote, voters were split about evenly on whether they would reject any tax of any kind. And within three other Georgia regions, the tax passed. Each of those regions will levy its own tax and build its own list of projects, provided it survives legal challenges.
In metro Atlanta, the tax met strong opposition. Voters in different places had parochial concerns about the projects.
In DeKalb County, support was strong in and around the city of Decatur. But it quickly paled in other areas, and dropped to opposition. In the northern, more affluent areas, opposition was strong or overwhelming. South of I-20, the measure met occasional pockets of support but mostly widespread opposition.
Lucius Gundy, 61, of Stone Mountain voted against it. “Rail is necessary in this area,” he said. “The plan doesn’t have that, hence my no vote.”
The opposition in Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton counties was especially damaging because the campaign hoped to win perhaps 60 percent of Democrats. With that as their base, they could work hard to win over just enough Republican women in suburban counties where highway congestion hurts most.
Ashley Morris, 35, an east Cobb stay-at-home mom, said she voted no “because I don’t want my taxes being raised.”
Generally, though, Morris said, she felt that the T-SPLOST campaign failed to do a good job of educating voters on the projects.
At least one analyst believes that overall, the vote was simply a rebuke of the people in power, the corporate interests who pushed the referendum.
“It’s the business element and those who appear on the surface to benefit from this telling other folks what’s best for them,” said political science professor William Boone of Clark Atlanta University. “It turns out the people decide what’s best for them.”
Data specialist Kelly Guckian, photographer Kent Johnson and staff writers Paige Cornwell, Patrick Fox and Janel Davis contributed to this article.
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