GA-6 Special election discussion thread

[Adam Griffin]

It will be very tough for dems to take the house without winning one of these special elections.

KS-4 and MT-AL aren't even in the top 75 most competitive GOP-held House seats when balancing PVI, average overall turnout and public perception of AHCA.

If a mid-term wave does strike, it's going to topple dozens upon dozens of seats before those.

Democrats struck out in special elections in 2005. The GOP lost House seats in specials in 2009. Sans any indicators like increased turnout pointing to a spike in enthusiasm for one side (which we're seeing), special election results are pretty meaningless. 

[Adam Griffin]

Fulton County Department of Elections is suddenly changing voting locations for a dozen precincts in advance of the June 20 run-off. When asked why, their answer was "unforeseen circumstances".

You must be logged in to read this quote.

For the record, the April 18 partisan breakdown of these combined precincts was 55.3% GOP, 44.7% Dem.

Freedom Fighters!

[Person Man]

Fulton County Department of Elections is suddenly changing voting locations for a dozen precincts in advance of the June 20 run-off. When asked why, their answer was "unforeseen circumstances".

You must be logged in to read this quote.

For the record, the April 18 partisan breakdown of these combined precincts was 55.3% GOP, 44.7% Dem.

Freedom Fighters!

Voter suppression is voter suppression. The only solace is that the good guys aren't victims for once...and its still very wrong.

[Sorenroy]

Fulton County Department of Elections is suddenly changing voting locations for a dozen precincts in advance of the June 20 run-off. When asked why, their answer was "unforeseen circumstances".

You must be logged in to read this quote.

For the record, the April 18 partisan breakdown of these combined precincts was 55.3% GOP, 44.7% Dem.

Freedom Fighters!

Voter suppression is voter suppression. The only solace is that the good guys aren't victims for once...and its still very wrong.

There is no solace in less people voting, especially in an off year election where there are less voters anyway. They're picking someone to represent them for like a year and a half, not just a change in the shade of red or blue on a map of house districts.

Also, they've known about this election for a while. (1) Why would the locations have "scheduled events" on election day when they knew when the election was and (2) why would they only announce the changes now. It's not like the first round was yesterday; it was five weeks ago. How were these changes "unforeseen" (unless this is only being done to suppress voter turnout).

[Adam Griffin]

^^^ Nah, this is part of the broader reason why our side is inherently inferior and continues to lose. Realize what world you're living in and abandon the idealism.

[Sorenroy]

^^^ Nah, this is part of the broader reason why our side is inherently inferior and continues to lose. Realize what world you're living in and abandon the idealism.

I would rather be in the minority party that doesn't accept voter suppression as an a-ok form of winning then whatever pseudo-democratic Democratic party you support.

[windjammer]

Oh God, not McDonald again. I'm getting 2016 flashbacks from this.

That being said, Ossoff should win 51-49 or so. This is not the same as MT.

I would say more 52-48

[Adam Griffin]

^^^ Nah, this is part of the broader reason why our side is inherently inferior and continues to lose. Realize what world you're living in and abandon the idealism.

I would rather be in the minority party that doesn't accept voter suppression as an a-ok form of winning then whatever pseudo-democratic Democratic party you support.

Maybe you can afford to have that hoity-toity moral luxury. Many of us cannot. One side tends to think like you and the other side gets to govern.

The system is fundamentally unfair as-is and slanted in favor of the GOP in a number of ways that give that minority bloc majority influence. If you actually support democracy that is representative, then you'll support whatever it takes to rat-f[inks]k the s[inks]t out of them, eliminate those unfair advantages and put the actual majority party in this country back in the majority again.

[Tintrlvr]

Fulton County Department of Elections is suddenly changing voting locations for a dozen precincts in advance of the June 20 run-off. When asked why, their answer was "unforeseen circumstances".

You must be logged in to read this quote.

For the record, the April 18 partisan breakdown of these combined precincts was 55.3% GOP, 44.7% Dem.

Freedom Fighters!

Voter suppression is voter suppression. The only solace is that the good guys aren't victims for once...and its still very wrong.

There is no solace in less people voting, especially in an off year election where there are less voters anyway. They're picking someone to represent them for like a year and a half, not just a change in the shade of red or blue on a map of house districts.

Also, they've known about this election for a while. (1) Why would the locations have "scheduled events" on election day when they knew when the election was and (2) why would they only announce the changes now. It's not like the first round was yesterday; it was five weeks ago. How were these changes "unforeseen" (unless this is only being done to suppress voter turnout).

If they were really trying to suppress voter turnout, there are precincts that are a lot more Republican than these to relocate. They could have come up with a dozen precincts in Fulton County that voted 65% or more for Republican candidates on April 18. The fact that these are slightly more Republican than the district as a whole (just 4% more - 55% vs. 51%) is well within the range of pure coincidence. Seems much more like incompetence.

Edit: Same concept with the DeKalb County board of elections' incompetence with having the early voting locations outside the district for most of early voting in the first round. Clearly they were not trying to suppress the Democratic vote, but they probably did so through incompetence. And that likely had more effect than this does.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Fulton County Department of Elections is suddenly changing voting locations for a dozen precincts in advance of the June 20 run-off. When asked why, their answer was "unforeseen circumstances".

You must be logged in to read this quote.

For the record, the April 18 partisan breakdown of these combined precincts was 55.3% GOP, 44.7% Dem.

Freedom Fighters!

Voter suppression is voter suppression. The only solace is that the good guys aren't victims for once...and its still very wrong.

There is no solace in less people voting, especially in an off year election where there are less voters anyway. They're picking someone to represent them for like a year and a half, not just a change in the shade of red or blue on a map of house districts.

Also, they've known about this election for a while. (1) Why would the locations have "scheduled events" on election day when they knew when the election was and (2) why would they only announce the changes now. It's not like the first round was yesterday; it was five weeks ago. How were these changes "unforeseen" (unless this is only being done to suppress voter turnout).

If they were really trying to suppress voter turnout, there are precincts that are a lot more Republican than these to relocate. They could have come up with a dozen precincts in Fulton County that voted 65% or more for Republican candidates on April 18. The fact that these are slightly more Republican than the district as a whole (just 4% more - 55% vs. 51%) is well within the range of pure coincidence. Seems much more like incompetence.

With Fulton County, incompetence is fairly likely.  I've lived in several metro ATL counties, and the Fulton government was the most inefficient and difficult to deal with.

[MT Treasurer]

How much is Ossoff expected to win the early vote by? And what margin does Handel need with election day voters in order to win? I assume things here aren't as complicated in Montana.

[Sorenroy]

^^^ Nah, this is part of the broader reason why our side is inherently inferior and continues to lose. Realize what world you're living in and abandon the idealism.

I would rather be in the minority party that doesn't accept voter suppression as an a-ok form of winning then whatever pseudo-democratic Democratic party you support.

Maybe you can afford to have that hoity-toity moral luxury. Many of us cannot. One side tends to think like you and the other side gets to govern.

The system is fundamentally unfair as-is and slanted in favor of the GOP in a number of ways that give that minority bloc majority influence. If you actually support democracy that is representative, then you'll support whatever it takes to rat-f[inks]k the s[inks]t out of them, eliminate those unfair advantages and put the actual majority party in this country back in the majority again.

So what you are saying is that, because the system is unfair, Democrats, when they are able to claw back power from the Republicans, should gerrymander as hard as possible to make up for the flaws in the system? If that's not what you are saying and I'm reading you wrong, then please correct me, but that appears to be what you are arguing.

First off, nothing can happen unless Democrats win. If they cannot, we will perpetually live in a world governed by Republicans. The argument of Democrats gerrymandering or not does not matter if Democrats are never in a position to do so. My argument is this: gerrymandering, no matter which side does it, is bad. As such, if we do continue to win by 15 point margins through 2020 and are in positions of power after the next census, I would hope that Democrats would not try to turn around and screw the Republicans out of as many seats as humanly possible.

That is not to say that I do not recognize and agree with the fact that there are issues in our current system. For example, even if Democrats do not gerrymander, there is nothing from stopping the Republicans from screwing us back over in 2030 if they control the states. What I would propose to you is that, rather than further the partisanship in this country, we as Democrats redo the laws when we gain power so that Republicans are not able to gerrymander in the first place. Rather than hope that the Republicans will pay us back in kind, I am saying that we should make it so that they have to, no matter if they want to or not.

For starters, we don't have to just ignore the issue. Democrats can work to make it law that there is a non-partisan board, or whatever other acceptable un-political group/computer program/something else, that draws the lines for the districts.

As for issues such as the natural spreadoutedness of Republicans, making our elections more representative of the votes cast would be a good (albeit long term) solution to the problem.

[Barnes]

Let's get back on track, please. This has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

[Adam Griffin]

How much is Ossoff expected to win the early vote by? And what margin does Handel need with election day voters in order to win? I assume things here aren't as complicated in Montana.

Democrats combined won 78% of mail ballots and 63% of in-person votes, for an early vote total of 65%.

 

[_]

How much is Ossoff expected to win the early vote by? And what margin does Handel need with election day voters in order to win? I assume things here aren't as complicated in Montana.

Democrats combined won 78% of mail ballots and 63% of in-person votes, for an early vote total of 65%.

 

So in order to counterbalance GOP Eday votes they have to get to at least... 68% EV?

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

^ Yes, if we assume Ossoff can't do any better among ED voters than he did in the jungle, which obviously isn't true.

[Badger]

^ Yes, if we assume Ossoff can't do any better among ED voters than he did in the jungle, which obviously isn't true.

Why would we assume he would do better among ED voters now compared to the primary? The handful of minor Democratic candidates and the equally small number of Republican primary voters whom would choose Ossoff over Handel? Serious question.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Regardless of party or position, this is the kind of approach to politics that we could use more of:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Sir Mohamed]

Regardless of party or position, this is the kind of approach to politics that we could use more of:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Not the worst approach. Actually a really good concept. He can't run as a hyper-liberal partisan in such a district.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Early voting is now open: http://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/early-voting-underway-georgia-6th-district-runoff/bUPI7JeIMN2rFnMAP3W33N/

[KingSweden]

Regardless of party or position, this is the kind of approach to politics that we could use more of:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Good stuff. How our politics should be.

[GeorgiaModerate]

First day of early voting:

https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/869650342220374018

[heatcharger]

Where are muh polls? I'm curious whether Ossoff is actually leading or not.

[Ebsy]

First day of early voting:

https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/869650342220374018

Those are just mail in absentees, not in person voting. We'll get that data in about 15 minutes.

[GeorgiaModerate]

First day of early voting:

https://twitter.com/ElectProject/status/869650342220374018

Those are just mail in absentees, not in person voting. We'll get that data in about 15 minutes.

Ah, thank you for the clarification.