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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Jim Crow roots of why Georgia law is requiring Raphael Warnock to stand for election twice
On Saturday, PBS News dived deep into the history of how racist laws conceived in the Jim Crow era form the origin of the Georgia runoff system, which has required Democratic Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock to stand for a second round of voting after narrowly edging out Trump-endorsed NFL veteran Herschel Walker in November by plurality.
"Since the 1960s, Georgias majority voting law has required a candidate get 50 percent of the vote or more in order to be declared the winner and was introduced by a staunch segregationist legislator named Denmark Groover," wrote Nicole Ellis and Rachel Liesendahl. "Even now, the law 'makes it more difficult for any group which forms a minority in the population to elect its candidates of choice,' regardless of the candidates ethnicity, historian and California Institute of Technology professor Morgan Kousser told the PBS NewsHours Nicole Ellis."
"When so-called 'white-only primary' elections were deemed unconstitutional in 1946, Black voter registration surged across the South, including in Georgia. In 1940, an estimated 250,000 Black southerners were registered to vote and that number rose to 775,000 by 1948, according to data from the National Park Service," said the report. "When Groover lost reelection to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1958 despite winning the majority of the white vote, data from segregated polling places in Macon revealed that Black voters contributed to the upset victory by his opponent, Kousser said. In his book, 'Colorblind Injustice: Minority Voting Rights and the Undoing of the Second Reconstruction,' Kousser writes that Groovers opponent 'triumphed by garnering black ballots by a five-to-one margin.'"
Groover ultimately won re-election in 1963 and immediately pushed the runoff system as a way of diluting Black voting power, which he referred to as the "Negro Voting Block," the report continued. The runoff system "forc[es] voters to choose between the two candidates with the most votes in a separate runoff election. Kousser explains that majority voting may seem innocuous, but if the vote is racially polarized, 'runoffs discriminate against Blacks because they are a minority of the voters.'"
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-jim-crow-roots-of-why-georgia-law-is-requiring-raphael-warnock-to-stand-for-election-twice/ar-AA14S0Vl
dawg
(10,624 posts)elections to the major party they differ from the most.
I just wish it was an instant runoff instead of a separate election.
MissMillie
(38,594 posts).
no_hypocrisy
(46,251 posts)W_HAMILTON
(7,876 posts)Racist Republicans ran an embarrassingly dumb black celebrity candidate from Texas thinking that it would fool enough black Georgia voters to vote for their party.
It did not and has not, but the underlying racist undertones most certainly are still there.
CurtEastPoint
(18,672 posts)voted for Warnock.
Solly Mack
(90,795 posts)Bernardo de La Paz
(49,060 posts)SlimJimmy
(3,183 posts)If the system was the way that most of DU seems to want it, Sen Warnock would have lost in the general election to the Republican since he had 50,000 more votes. Sen Warnock won in the runoff since the Republican didn't get to 50%
brush
(53,949 posts)in the general being declared the winner without the bs, racist runoff system.
How do you figure Warnock would lose, especially since he's gotten the most votes three times already, and he's about to make it four times.
Take it to the bank.
Sgent
(5,857 posts)Ossif would have and we would have an R Senate for the last two years:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-georgia.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-elections-2020®ion=TOP_BANNER&context=election_recirc
Jungle primaries favor moderate politicians. I would be ok with ranked choice voting, but that has been attacked as too confusing.
brush
(53,949 posts)DFW
(54,465 posts)In the November 2020 election, Warnock got 32+% and Loeffler got 25+%. Since the runoff is only the top two, one of the two will win with over 50% unless both get exactly the same number of votes, and that just isnt going to happen.
In the same November election, Jon Ossoff got 47.9% and the Republican incumbent got 49.7%. Because of the 50% law, a runoff was required here, too. This saved us, because during November and January, when the runoff was held, Trumps antics and low Republican participation were just enough for Jon to get 50.6% in the runoff, and thus win the seat he would have otherwise lost in November. I think the combined IQ of the Georgia Senators went up by at least a third that day.
SlimJimmy
(3,183 posts)in the general election and would have won outright under the system you favor. But, because he didn't get 50%, it went to a runoff, and Warnock won.
brush
(53,949 posts)She was appointed by the Gov. when the sitting senator resigned in 2019 for health reasons. Warnock subsequently beat Loeffler in a special election in 2020 to finish the term of the senator who resigned.
So we were both wrong, neither Warnoci nor Loeffler ran in 2018, and Warnock has only had the most votes two times, not three. I expect him to beat Walker on Tuesday which will make him a three-time winner.
SlimJimmy
(3,183 posts)UTUSN
(70,771 posts)SlimJimmy
(3,183 posts)UTUSN
(70,771 posts)DFW
(54,465 posts)Jon Ossoff got less votes than Perdue, the Republican incumbent Senator in the first round. Perdue got 49.7% as opposed to 47.9% for Jon Ossoff. Since Perdue didnt make the 50% threshold, the runoff was mandatory under Georgia law.
During the two months between the November election and the runoff, people soured on the Republicans, and just enough of their voters stayed home so that Jon could get 50% of the votes cast, and become Georgias « other » Democratic senator.
Voltaire2
(13,234 posts)Physical runoffs, on the other hand, are silly. There are other simple mechanisms like Ranked Choice Voting that can resolve the election with one ballot.
The replies in this thread pointing out how we would have lost in past elections without Georgia's system are entirely missing the point. It isn't democracy if it's merely a game to see who's better than who at rigging it.
SlimJimmy
(3,183 posts)I like the system, you can keep whatever system you have. Feel free to stay out of my state's politics.
kcr
(15,320 posts)If anything, it allows them to wreak more havoc as they steal votes away from a main candidate and force the runoff to begin with. I think you may be confusing runoffs with ranked-choice voting.
MichMan
(12,000 posts)Any third party candidates aren't in it. People that voted for them will have to choose between the top two instead.
SlimJimmy
(3,183 posts)This is the very definition of a spoiler. If your candidate lost because votes were taken away by a third party, you'd be singing a different tune.