Handicapping The PSC Runoff: Judicial Races May Play A Role
Dr. Charles S. Bullock writes in InsiderAdvantage Georgia:
[This] week Georgians get to experience some of the diversity encouraged by our federal system. We will be voting in a general election runoff. While many municipalities and eight other states have vote thresholds for primary elections, of states that have primaries, Georgia alone requires a minimum vote share in a general election.
In an exclusively two-party system, requiring a majority vote would stimulate a runoff only under the unlikely circumstance of two candidates evenly dividing the vote. The frequent presence of Libertarians competing for statewide offices raises the prospect of no candidate winning a majority.
[In the contest for the Third District seat on the Public Service Commission (PSC members must live in designated districts but the entire state votes on each one), the incumbent, David Burgess, got] 48.8 percent while his Republican challenger, Chuck Eaton, got 46.3 percent.
Generally, incumbents pushed into a primary runoff do not survive even if they led the primary field. Since 1970, incumbents who led Georgia primaries have won runoffs only about 40 percent of the time. General election runoffs have been too infrequent to develop estimates of success rates for these contests.
Fourteen years ago when Georgia had its first statewide general election runoff, two contests appeared on the ballot. The headliner was the U.S. Senate contest in which Democratic incumbent Wyche Fowler led in the general election with 49.2 percent of the vote - 35,000 votes ahead of Paul Coverdell. In the runoff, which Coverdell won by 16,300 votes, turnout dropped from 2.2 million three weeks earlier to 1.25 million in the runoff.
After Fowler fell in the runoff, the General Assembly reduced the threshold for election to 45 percent. In 1996, that lower requirement allowed Max Cleland to go to the Senate with 48.8 percent of the vote. Republicans believed that had a majority been required, Guy Millner would have replicated Coverdell’s come-from-behind victory. Once Republicans took control of state government, they restored the 50 percent plus one requirement.
For the first time since judicial elections were made nonpartisan in 1984, they have been pushed back from the primary to the general election.
If turnout statewide hovers around ten percent, the handful of counties that have judicial or local contests still to be resolved will exert a disproportionate influence in determining whether Democrats retain their one PSC seat.
[This] week Georgians get to experience some of the diversity encouraged by our federal system. We will be voting in a general election runoff. While many municipalities and eight other states have vote thresholds for primary elections, of states that have primaries, Georgia alone requires a minimum vote share in a general election.
In an exclusively two-party system, requiring a majority vote would stimulate a runoff only under the unlikely circumstance of two candidates evenly dividing the vote. The frequent presence of Libertarians competing for statewide offices raises the prospect of no candidate winning a majority.
[In the contest for the Third District seat on the Public Service Commission (PSC members must live in designated districts but the entire state votes on each one), the incumbent, David Burgess, got] 48.8 percent while his Republican challenger, Chuck Eaton, got 46.3 percent.
Generally, incumbents pushed into a primary runoff do not survive even if they led the primary field. Since 1970, incumbents who led Georgia primaries have won runoffs only about 40 percent of the time. General election runoffs have been too infrequent to develop estimates of success rates for these contests.
Fourteen years ago when Georgia had its first statewide general election runoff, two contests appeared on the ballot. The headliner was the U.S. Senate contest in which Democratic incumbent Wyche Fowler led in the general election with 49.2 percent of the vote - 35,000 votes ahead of Paul Coverdell. In the runoff, which Coverdell won by 16,300 votes, turnout dropped from 2.2 million three weeks earlier to 1.25 million in the runoff.
After Fowler fell in the runoff, the General Assembly reduced the threshold for election to 45 percent. In 1996, that lower requirement allowed Max Cleland to go to the Senate with 48.8 percent of the vote. Republicans believed that had a majority been required, Guy Millner would have replicated Coverdell’s come-from-behind victory. Once Republicans took control of state government, they restored the 50 percent plus one requirement.
For the first time since judicial elections were made nonpartisan in 1984, they have been pushed back from the primary to the general election.
If turnout statewide hovers around ten percent, the handful of counties that have judicial or local contests still to be resolved will exert a disproportionate influence in determining whether Democrats retain their one PSC seat.
posted by Sid Cottingham | 8:14 AM
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