Runoff will determine racial majority of Macon City Council

Matt Barnwell writes in The Macon Telegraph:

Macon may enter the next political term with more than just a white mayor. For the first time since 1995, the city could find itself with a majority white City Council as well.

The tipping point comes Aug. 14, when the outcome of a single runoff election will determine the council's racial majority. In that race, Tom Ellington, a white Wesleyan College professor, is competing for a Ward III seat against Marshall Burkett, a black retiree.

If Ellington, who won the most votes in this month's three-way primary election, is victorious, it would tilt the council's racial composition away from the actual makeup of the community.

Some 60 percent of the city's active voters are black, while about 37 percent are white. That breakdown is similar to the actual population of Macon and mirrors the council's current black-to-white makeup of nine to six.

A Burkett victory would result in eight black council members and seven white members. But an Ellington win would fill council seats with eight white members and seven black members, a departure from a political course that a dozen years ago many might not have predicted.

Reichert won every precinct on the Democratic side of the mayor's race.

Reichert, on average, won 43 percent of the vote in Macon's black precincts.