Georgia's Very Own Megathread!

[QAnonKelly]

Shenanigans!!!

https://flagpole.com/news/city-dope/2019/09/11/weird-winterville-election-results-raise-questions

Lol I love to imagine there being a bunch of secret republicans in Athens

[GeorgiaModerate]

Shenanigans!!!

https://flagpole.com/news/city-dope/2019/09/11/weird-winterville-election-results-raise-questions

Lol I love to imagine there being a bunch of secret republicans in Athens

...who all conspired to use the same voting machine.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Voter registration surges in Georgia ahead of 2020 elections

More than 352,000 people signed up to vote in the past 11 months, the vast majority of them automatically registering when they obtain a driver’s license, according to data from the secretary of state’s office. The influx has boosted Georgia’s voter rolls to a record high of nearly 7.4 million.
...
About 47% of the new voters who identified their race are minorities and 45% are age 30 or younger, according to an analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution of a list of voters registered from Nov. 6 to Aug. 12. By comparison, 40% of all Georgia voters are minorities and 14% are age 30 or younger.

[Rookie Yinzer]

We can win in 2020. We really have to be vigilant about making sure people know their rights at the polls and that they are at the correct precinct. I know where we are, we are fighting for an extra Saturday, Sunday voting, and extended hours the last week of Early Voting. Turnout is going to be insane.

[QAnonKelly]

Abrams lost by only 55k votes. I’m sure this surge would net that easily if they actually all vote.

[skbl17]

See, this is why I can't see the justification for calling any Georgia statewide race next year as better than "Lean R". Clinton lost to Trump here by 211,141 votes, and as previously mentioned, Abrams lost to Kemp by 54,723. While it's highly unlikely that all 352,000 new voters would vote Dem, if they can keep up the pace in new voter registration it's not insane to believe that Dems could make up the remaining ground from 2016 and 2018 just from new registrations alone.

I actually took a look at the Abrams' campaign's post-mortem document, "The Abrams Playbook", and nothing about the 2020 expectations there seemed unreasonable. One of the big strategies mentioned in the document was registering new voters, particularly minorities and young people; the new registration data seems to imply that such a strategy may bear fruit. We'll just have to see if the Dems can get them to the polls - that's the big question.

Of course, I am neither saying that PresiDem will win Georgia nor that either Senate seat will flip, but I firmly believe that GA is being underrated in general, with some people on this site and in the political/election commentary sphere at large thinking that 2018 was a fluke and that Georgia will revert to something resembling 2012 next year.

[Virginiá]

Many of these new registrants probably won't vote without some sort of push. They were auto-registered, so while a barrier is now overcome, they still need to be contacted by campaigns to get them to vote.

[Adam Griffin]

The questions with regards to the surge of new registrants are of course:

1) What percentage will actually vote? (most of these people are being registered automatically)
2) What percentage of the white vote is Democratic?

Let's assume non-whites are at the standard 85% Democratic and whites (due to age) are at 30% Democratic: that produces a 56-44 Democratic advantage, or a net margin of 42,000 votes for Democrats.

However, assuming that half actually vote (for the time being, I think that's pretty generous actually), you're looking at a 21,000 vote margin gain, which illustrates just why it takes an insane number of new registrants to typically change elections even by a small amount.

And given we're at 7.4 million out of 10.5 million people and 24% (2.5 million) are under 18, we're getting close to being maxed out on new registrants.

[Yellowhammer]

We can win in 2020. We really have to be vigilant about making sure people know their rights at the polls and that they are at the correct precinct. I know where we are, we are fighting for an extra Saturday, Sunday voting, and extended hours the last week of Early Voting. Turnout is going to be insane.

Personally I think voting should be e-day only.

[Pericles]

We can win in 2020. We really have to be vigilant about making sure people know their rights at the polls and that they are at the correct precinct. I know where we are, we are fighting for an extra Saturday, Sunday voting, and extended hours the last week of Early Voting. Turnout is going to be insane.

Personally I think voting should be e-day only.

Of course you do lol, this is a great point against that view.

[Rookie Yinzer]

The questions with regards to the surge of new registrants are of course:

1) What percentage will actually vote? (most of these people are being registered automatically)
2) What percentage of the white vote is Democratic?

Let's assume non-whites are at the standard 85% Democratic and whites (due to age) are at 30% Democratic: that produces a 56-44 Democratic advantage, or a net margin of 42,000 votes for Democrats.

However, assuming that half actually vote (for the time being, I think that's pretty generous actually), you're looking at a 21,000 vote margin gain, which illustrates just why it takes an insane number of new registrants to typically change elections even by a small amount.

And given we're at 7.4 million out of 10.5 million people and 24% (2.5 million) are under 18, we're getting close to being maxed out on new registrants.

There were 1 million new voters on the roll between 2016 and 2018. Even with that, turnout in relation to those numbers went down in 2018. The best candidate in the world couldn't top presidential turnout in a midterm. We need to see how 2020 shakes out with those registrants plus the ones this year and next year when presidential turnout will be closer to 70 percent rather than the 60 percent that turned out last year.

[TrendsareUsuallyReal]

We can win in 2020. We really have to be vigilant about making sure people know their rights at the polls and that they are at the correct precinct. I know where we are, we are fighting for an extra Saturday, Sunday voting, and extended hours the last week of Early Voting. Turnout is going to be insane.

Personally I think voting should be e-day only.

Of course you do lol, this is a great point against that view.

I would be for Election Day only if it were a national holiday. With exceptions for extreme circumstances like work-related travel, or something.

[QAnonKelly]

We should be like CO, OR, and WA and vote entirely by mail. It's more convenient, cheaper for the state, would allow people to take their time, and most importantly stop intimidation. The last one is why Kemp and Co. will never let it happen.

[Adam Griffin]

The questions with regards to the surge of new registrants are of course:

1) What percentage will actually vote? (most of these people are being registered automatically)
2) What percentage of the white vote is Democratic?

Let's assume non-whites are at the standard 85% Democratic and whites (due to age) are at 30% Democratic: that produces a 56-44 Democratic advantage, or a net margin of 42,000 votes for Democrats.

However, assuming that half actually vote (for the time being, I think that's pretty generous actually), you're looking at a 21,000 vote margin gain, which illustrates just why it takes an insane number of new registrants to typically change elections even by a small amount.

And given we're at 7.4 million out of 10.5 million people and 24% (2.5 million) are under 18, we're getting close to being maxed out on new registrants.

There were 1 million new voters on the roll between 2016 and 2018. Even with that, turnout in relation to those numbers went down in 2018. The best candidate in the world couldn't top presidential turnout in a midterm. We need to see how 2020 shakes out with those registrants plus the ones this year and next year when presidential turnout will be closer to 70 percent rather than the 60 percent that turned out last year.

There's certainly a lot in flux that can affect things dramatically. I do think that combining 2016 and 2018 performances and turnout can paint a solid baseline picture of where we start for 2020. I did some number-crunching and came up with a base turnout of 4.935 million voters in 2020. That's based on 2016/2018 and also factors in the likely effects of GA being legitimately contested in the presidential race. I then compared that rather simplistically to raw population and how turnout in NC/VA (similarly-sized southern states that are contested by both parties) looked in 2016: both states had turnout equivalent to 47% of their populations, which is almost exactly what 4.935m would be for us as of the latest Census estimates.

R 2,485,000   50.35%
D 2,381,000   48.24%
O 69,000        1.41%

This does not factor in any elevated natural national enthusiasm for 2020 (relative to 2016) that might trickle down to GA, any phenomenal shifts in turnout among post-2018 ARVs or shifts in voters flipping from one party in 2018 to another in 2020, but it's a start. It also somewhat underlines my belief that we actually over-performed slightly in 2018 compared to what demographics would have suggested.

[Devout Centrist]

We can win in 2020. We really have to be vigilant about making sure people know their rights at the polls and that they are at the correct precinct. I know where we are, we are fighting for an extra Saturday, Sunday voting, and extended hours the last week of Early Voting. Turnout is going to be insane.

Personally I think voting should be e-day only.

Why?

[Yellowhammer]

We can win in 2020. We really have to be vigilant about making sure people know their rights at the polls and that they are at the correct precinct. I know where we are, we are fighting for an extra Saturday, Sunday voting, and extended hours the last week of Early Voting. Turnout is going to be insane.

Personally I think voting should be e-day only.

Why?

To help prevent some of the democratic voter fraud, and to make voting more of a commitment.

[Continential]

We can win in 2020. We really have to be vigilant about making sure people know their rights at the polls and that they are at the correct precinct. I know where we are, we are fighting for an extra Saturday, Sunday voting, and extended hours the last week of Early Voting. Turnout is going to be insane.

Personally I think voting should be e-day only.

Why?

To help prevent some of the democratic voter fraud, and to make voting more of a commitment.

So, you support Mandatory Voting?

[Mr. Smith]

We should be like CO, OR, and WA and vote entirely by mail. It's more convenient, cheaper for the state, would allow people to take their time, and most importantly stop intimidation. The last one is why Kemp and Co. will never let it happen.

Why not the way CA has it set up?

[QAnonKelly]

We should be like CO, OR, and WA and vote entirely by mail. It's more convenient, cheaper for the state, would allow people to take their time, and most importantly stop intimidation. The last one is why Kemp and Co. will never let it happen.

Why not the way CA has it set up?

I really just don’t think there should be polling places except for ones where they help people with disabilities. I think they’re a waste of money and time that can be used elsewhere.

[Adam Griffin]

Yeah, in-person voting should be abolished for all but a few situations. De-facto party registration should be implemented and the states/counties could cover the postage costs to mail every registered voter a ballot.

After this change, voters receive a card requesting their preferences, with the options being either to fill out the card once to ensure they receive the same party's primary ballot in all future elections (or until changed via local office or online), or that they receive a party ballot for just that one upcoming election (in which case they'll be contacted via the same method ahead of future primaries). Obviously general election ballots would be much simpler.

Ballots can then either be mailed back via postage-paid envelopes or dropped off at secure drop-points in each county.

Most counties in GA are currently spending more than $1 per voter in each election just to operate the physical precincts (primary, primary runoff, general, general runoff). Spending $0.50 to mail a ballot and $0.50 to have it returned isn't a cost-prohibitive procedure.

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

We can win in 2020. We really have to be vigilant about making sure people know their rights at the polls and that they are at the correct precinct. I know where we are, we are fighting for an extra Saturday, Sunday voting, and extended hours the last week of Early Voting. Turnout is going to be insane.

Personally I think voting should be e-day only.

Why?

To help prevent some of the democratic voter fraud, and to make voting more of a commitment.

How about making Election Day a holiday?

[Pericles]

We can win in 2020. We really have to be vigilant about making sure people know their rights at the polls and that they are at the correct precinct. I know where we are, we are fighting for an extra Saturday, Sunday voting, and extended hours the last week of Early Voting. Turnout is going to be insane.

Personally I think voting should be e-day only.

Why?

To help prevent some of the democratic voter fraud, and to make voting more of a commitment.

Voter fraud is practically non-existent in the US. Voter suppression, based on this myth, is unfortunately very real.

[Rookie Yinzer]

Forsyth County adding five polling stations in 2020:

https://www.gpbnews.org/post/forsyth-county-adds-polling-places-ahead-2020-election

[GeorgiaModerate]

Forsyth County adding five polling stations in 2020:

https://www.gpbnews.org/post/forsyth-county-adds-polling-places-ahead-2020-election

I think this change is going to move me to a new precinct and polling place, although it doesn't matter much because I usually vote early.

[BundouYMB]

We can win in 2020. We really have to be vigilant about making sure people know their rights at the polls and that they are at the correct precinct. I know where we are, we are fighting for an extra Saturday, Sunday voting, and extended hours the last week of Early Voting. Turnout is going to be insane.

Personally I think voting should be e-day only.

Why?

To help prevent some of the democratic voter fraud, and to make voting more of a commitment.

You mean so the Republican thugs can keep as many blacks from voting as possible.