By: Miguel Garcia
- On Jan. 5th, 2021, the Georgia runoff election will determine if Democrats or Republicans take control of the senate.
- Changing demographics in Georgia flipped the state blue for the first time in 28 years.
- Alleged voter fraud has given voters doubt.
KENNESAW, Ga. – Mendavia Towns did not think her vote for Joe Biden would count in this year’s election when she got up on the morning of Thursday, Oct. 29th when she went to her local library to vote. This year, it made a difference. The State of Georgia has gone blue for Joe Biden, defeating Donald J. Trump in the popular vote by 12,670 votes. This has been a gradual change in the last 12 years from the help of voting rights activist Stacey Abrams. Both Democrats and Republicans are looking at Georgia as Democrats are only missing the two senate seats in Georgia to make a 50-50 tie with Republicans where Vice President Kamala Harris can break the vote towards the Democrats.
“Even with a virus, it has not stopped us from voting.” Mendavia Towns said.
More than 156 million Americans voted on the Nov. 3rd election that is an estimated 47% of the US population, which is the highest turn out in American history, according to The Washington Post. Due to the current pandemic, Georgia has put in different voting measures that have not been seen in a while, “this is the first time Georgia has used paper ballots in 20 years,” said Voting System Implementation Manager Gabriel Sterling. The Republican president has spread misinformation about mail-in ballots, claiming they are fraudulent, resulting in an average of 70% to 85% of Georgia mail-in ballots going Democratic. At the same time, the majority of Republicans voted in person, according to the Times.
The last time Georgia has gone blue was in 1992 when Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush with the popular vote of 13,714 votes. The New Georgia Project, which was launched in 2013 by Stacey Abrams, has worked hard to increase voter registration not only in Georgia but across the nation and has succeeded by registering more than 500,000 Georgians. The Abrams Playbook is the blueprint to Georgia’s flip to blue outlining this dramatic change, “Building a strong multi-racial, multi-ethnic coalition with historic turnout levels… puts Democrats in a strong position to break down the door in 2020,” writes Stacey Abrams on Sept. 9th, 2019.
Not only did Georgia vote for Joe Biden, but both senate seats in Georgia are up for grabs in the Jan. 5th, 2021 runoff election because no candidates reached the 50% voter threshold. Republican Senator David Perdue was projected to win, but as mail-in ballots started eating away the Republican votes, Perdue was left with 49.73% of the vote and will face off Jon Ossoff next year, who received 47.95% of the vote, according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger election results. Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler only received 25.91% of the vote to face Raphael Warnock, who received 32.90% of the vote.
With the change of how Georgians voted on the Nov. 3rd election, there is a belief between party lines that there was voter fraud; 70% of republicans and 10% of Democrats believe there was voter fraud in this election, according to politico. Even though there is this belief that there was voter fraud “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history… There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.” said the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency. The president strongly believes mail-in ballots are fraudulent and in response fired the Department of Homeland Security Chris Krebs.
Georgia Exit Polls
CNN exit polls of the Nov. 3rd election have a telling story of how Georgia has changed in the last couple of years; with more populated areas such as the Atlanta Metro area voting for Joe Biden (80%) and Black (88%), Latino (62%) and younger voters between the age of 18 and 44 (55%) leaning towards Democratic. Due to the higher turnout among these groups, Georgia is now considered a battleground state. At the same time, it was unknown if Georgia would go blue early on in the night of Nov. 3rd. It was Clayton County that went from red to blue on the early Friday morning of Nov. 6th which projected Joe Biden to win the 16 electoral votes. Clayton County is the former home of the honorable John Lewis, who passed away earlier this year.
Paper Ballot Process in Georgia
Chatham County also switched from red to blue later on the election week. The majority of the ballots that needed to be counted were mail-in ballots. The tellers receive the votes from the Registrar’s Office and the tellers put the ballots into the scanner. Chatham County only had two scanners and 36 tellers in a borrowed warehouse where votes come in batches, sometimes thousands at a time. This explains the delayed projection of Georgia going from red to blue. Often the scanner will kick out a ballet if there is a problem. An adjudication team will look over the kicked out ballet. An adjudication team is a Democrat and a Republican who looks over the ballot to determine the voter’s intent. This is done in another building to be appropriately determined with video supervision, according to CNN.
Protests and Cheer
In Atlanta, businesses boarded up their property in preparation for the election results. According to The Signal the city has already been thru some damage with protest earlier this year with the death of George Floyd. There was an anticipation of violence after the election, but no significant injuries had occurred in Atlanta directly related to protests. Trump supporters have been seen protesting “Stop the vote!” or “Count that vote!” depending where the vote was going in that county. The mail-in votes subsequently pushed Biden over the top.
The Future of Politics
Joe Biden won Georgia with fewer votes than George H.W. Bush 28 years ago. Even though the current president has not conceded nor acknowledged Joe Biden as the winner most of the nation watches Georgia for the Jan. 5th 2021 fight for the senate. “I’m going to making sure I vote again,” said Mendavia Towns, who works as a case manager at a law firm. Regardless of the outcome next year when Joe Biden is inaugurated. Georgia is now considered a battleground state. It can be safe to say that the runoff results will be close.
The KSU Beat 