Georgian official against second round elections
2022.12.14 13:39
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Georgian official against second round elections
Budrigannews.com – A week after Democrats once more won a closely contested U.S. Senate runoff, Georgia’s top election official called on lawmakers to get rid of the state’s unusual runoff system on Wednesday.
Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said that runoff elections put a lot of pressure on election officials. A runoff between the two candidates with the most votes is required under Georgia law if no candidate receives at least half of the votes in the regular election in November.
Raffensperger stated in a statement, “No one wants to be dealing with politics in the middle of their family holiday.” It’s even more difficult for the counties, who struggled to meet all of their deadlines, conduct an election audit, and hold a runoff within four weeks.
Two runoff elections in the Senate were won by Democrats in January 2021, giving them control of the chamber and allowing President Joe Biden to move forward with his legislative agenda. In a second runoff earlier this month, former football star Herschel Walker was defeated by Senator Raphael Warnock, securing the Democrats’ majority in the Senate.
Raffensperger did not support any one alternative. According to a spokesperson for his office, the two most likely choices would be to use ranked-choice voting or the system that most states use, in which the candidate with the most votes in November wins the race.
Instant runoffs are another name for ranked-choice voting. Candidates are listed by preference by voters. The candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and their votes are redistributed in accordance with the second choice of the voters until a candidate reaches 50 percent.
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Only Maine and Alaska have implemented ranked-choice voting for federal and state elections. For general elections, only Louisiana and Georgia use a runoff system.
It was not immediately possible to reach the Republican legislators in Georgia for a response. The upcoming legislative session in the state begins in January.
