Voters wait in line at a precinct in Cobb County on May 18, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
More than 1 million Georgia voters have already cast ballots in the upcoming June 9 primary election via mail-in and early in-person voting, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office said Thursday.
The overwhelming majority of votes cast so far have come via absentee ballots amid a surge in mail-in voting spurred by the coronavirus pandemic.
Of the more than 1 million votes cast as of Thursday, roughly 80% were absentee ballots sent in the mail or placed in temporary drop-off boxes that county elections officials have installed in recent weeks, Raffensperger’s office said.
That amounts to 810,000 absentee ballots cast so far, already dwarfing the roughly 223,000 mail-in votes collected in the high-turnout 2018 gubernatorial election.
The surge in vote-by-mail comes as state and local elections officials face a daunting challenge to keep polling places sanitized and safe for voters and poll workers with many more voters poised to cast ballots in-person on Election Day than have done so to date.
“Though we encourage anyone who has requested an absentee ballot to return it by mail or submit it in a drop box, we look forward to providing safe in-person voting on Election Day as well,” Raffensperger said.
It remains to be seen how much absentee and early voting will account for the total vote share in the June 9 primary. Slightly more than 2 million voters cast ballots in the 2016 presidential primary, though that contest did not include the full roster of local, state and federal elections on next week’s primary ballots.
Voters who turn out on Election Day should expect longer lines than usual as volunteers at local polling places keep people spaced six feet apart in line and take more time to sanitize voting areas, Raffensperger told lawmakers on the Senate Appropriations Fiscal Management Subcommittee Tuesday.
“By and large, most voters have been very patient,” he said. “They understand how important it is to vote, whether by absentee or in person.”
Meanwhile, many voters in the state are still waiting to receive absentee ballots after requesting them weeks ago. Elections officials acknowledged Tuesday thousands of voters were still awaiting absentee ballots, particularly in Fulton County.
For instance, Kaleb McMichen, the press secretary for Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, said Thursday on Twitter he had not yet received his absentee ballot after requesting one on April 8.
Gabriel Sterling, the secretary of state’s chief operating officer, told lawmakers Tuesday 95% of voters who requested absentee ballots had received them and that an Arizona-based vendor the state is using to distribute the ballots had sent 38,000 of them in the mail earlier this week.
Raffensperger said Tuesday ballot turnaround was “in excellent shape” in every county except Fulton, which he called a “straggler county.” He pressed voters intent on mailing in their ballots to do so quickly.
Absentee votes must arrive at county elections offices by 7 p.m. on June 9.
Haste has also been the message from Democratic lawmakers in the state House in recent weeks. On Thursday, Rep. David Dreyer, D-Atlanta, urged voters who have not yet mailed in their absentee ballots to put them in a drop-off box that counties have set up to collect those ballots.
“I can guarantee your vote will be counted,” Dreyer said.
Chris Tomlinson, executive director, State Road and Tollway Authority
ATLANTA – The coronavirus pandemic has sent revenues on Georgia’s network of toll roads plummeting despite a significant uptick in traffic since businesses began reopening, the head of the State Road and Tollway Authority (SRTA) said Thursday.
Tolls paid by motorists traveling the toll lanes on interstates 75 and 85 in metro Atlanta declined by up to 90% during the last quarter, SRTA Executive Director Chris Tomlinson told members of the state Senate Appropriations Transportation Subcommittee during a budget hearing.
As a result, SRTA is projecting it will end the current fiscal year June 30 with only about $33 million of the $46 million the agency had expected to receive in fiscal 2020.
The outlook for the coming fiscal year is worse, with SRTA expected to bring in only $19.5 million in toll revenue, Tomlinson said.
“We’ve seen an unprecedented decline in toll revenues,” he said.
The plunging toll receipts seem to contradict the increase in traffic that has occurred since Gov. Brian Kemp began lifting the shelter-in-place restrictions he imposed to discourage the spread of COVID-19.
Georgia Commissioner of Transportation Russell McMurry told the subcommittee Thursday traffic on the state’s highways is back to within 20% of normal levels after bottoming out in early April. Truck traffic is at normal to slightly above-normal levels, he said.
But Tomlinson said the rise in traffic is not helping to boost toll revenues because of the nature of SRTA’s tolling system, which charges motorists willing to pay to travel in toll lanes rather than general-purpose lanes a toll based on the level of traffic at the time.
“Congestion is lighter and lasts a shorter period of time,” he said. “The average toll amount is going to decrease.”
For example, Tomlinson said the average toll for motorists on Interstate 85 has fallen from as high as $15 in February to just $4.
SRTA is forecasting declines in toll revenue of about 60% during the coming year on I-85 northeast of Atlanta and on the Northwest Corridor, which runs along I-75 and I-575 in Cobb and Cherokee counties. The forecast calls for a decline of 35% in toll receipts on I-75 south of Atlanta.
“We are looking at budget cuts in the order of 20% to 25% to deal with this issue,” Tomlinson said.
In the short run, SRTA plans to use about $10 million from the state Department of Transportation to help make ends meet, along with $3 million of SRTA’s $8 million in reserves.
But Tomlinson warned the agency must hold back some of its reserves to convince private lenders it depends on to finance future toll-lane projects that the agency’s finances are sustainable.
“We think [toll revenues] are going to come back,” he said. “Come the fall, we’ll have a better idea. [But], it’s going to be a lag.”
Kemp has instructed departments throughout state government to cut their fiscal 2021 budgets by 11% to help offset falling tax revenues resulting from the economic downturn brought on by COVID-19.
Starting with the Senate, the General Assembly will begin putting together a leaner state budget when lawmakers reconvene the suspended 2020 legislative session June 15.
ATLANTA – Jon Ossoff is holding a huge lead in Georgia’s U.S. Senate Democratic primary heading into Election Day next week, according to a poll conducted for WSB-TV by Landmark Communications.
Ossoff, an investigative journalist, was the choice of 41.9% of 400 likely Democratic voters surveyed earlier this week. Former Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson was running a distant second at 14.0%, followed by businesswoman Sarah Riggs Amico – the Democrats’ 2018 nominee for lieutenant governor – with 8.9%.
The other four candidates in this race polled only 7.2% combined, while 28.0% of the likely voters surveyed were undecided. The poll’s margin of error was 4.4%.
Ossoff, who lost a special election for a U.S. House seat to Republican Karen Handel three years ago, is the leading fund-raiser among the candidates looking challenge incumbent Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., in November. The Democrat from Atlanta has undoubtedly benefited from the name recognition he received during the 2017 contest, the most expensive House race in history.
Ossoff would have to capture more than 50% of the vote next week to win the Democratic primary outright. If none of the candidates gets a majority of the vote, the nomination would be decided in a runoff Aug. 9.
Perdue is running unopposed in the June 9 Republican Senate primary.
University System of Georgia Chancellor Steve Wrigley
ATLANTA – Students in the University System of Georgia didn’t miss a beat during the spring semester despite the disruption of converting to online instruction, according to a systemwide grading analysis released Wednesday.
The proportion of “A” grades awarded during the spring increased from 44.1% in the spring of last year to 52.4%, while the rate of students failing or withdrawing fell from 14.3% to 12.2%.
Citing the coronavirus pandemic, system Chancellor Steve Wrigley announced in mid-March that the system’s 26 colleges and universities would move to online instruction for the rest of the spring semester. The schools’ IT staffs responded by setting up an online system robust enough to meet the need, while faculty worked to convert their courses to online.
Students did their part by achieving academic progress across all subgroups of race and ethnicity as well as for both lower division and upper division undergraduate and graduate courses.
“Our students continue to show resilience and determination in pursuing their studies, and I am grateful for how often they have overcome the challenges thrown at them by COVID-19,” Wrigley said.
“Faculty and staff also worked hard to transition courses to an online format while maintaining their quality. I appreciate their flexibility and remain confident they will continue to do everything in their power to help every one of our students succeed.”
While remote instruction continues through summer semester, campuses across the university system are preparing for students to return for in-person classes during the fall semester.
Georgia senators huddle after Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan announced plans to suspend the legislative session over coronavirus concerns on March 12, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Georgia lawmakers are set to reconvene the 2020 legislative session on June 15, roughly three months after the General Assembly hit pause due to mounting concerns over coronavirus.
In a memo Wednesday, Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, agreed with Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan to resume the session on Monday, June 15. The two chamber leaders then formally signed a resolution to resume on that date.
The decision comes as lawmakers began work last week on crafting a budget for the 2021 fiscal year, which is poised for significant cuts due to the economic slowdown prompted by the coronavirus pandemic. The General Assembly has until July 1 to pass the budget.
The resumption of the session also comes as businesses continue reopening after weeks of closures that started in late March as the virus spread in Georgia, sickening thousands of people including several state lawmakers.
Ralston, who helms the House, initially called for a June 11 restart while Duncan, who presides over the Senate, pushed for May 18. The June 15 date marks a compromise between the two after weeks of disagreement on when to start wrapping up the 11 remaining days of the session’s 40-day schedule.
“I appreciate the Senate recognizing that we should reconvene the session in June as I proposed,” said Ralston. “I believe this will enable us to best serve the people of our great state.”
Duncan pitched the June 15 date after backing off his original May proposal, noting the mid-June timeframe would give lawmakers and the public a few days of breathing room following the state’s June 9 primary election.
“June 15 will give members enough time, after the primary election, to be tested for free at their local health departments, which all Georgians are able to do,” Duncan said.
Lawmakers have not yet settled on the logistics of holding the session in accordance with social distancing practices adopted during the pandemic. A task force set up by Ralston is expected to issue recommendations on measures like remote voting and physical separation inside the Capitol building.
They did, however, offer a preview of some social distancing measures during in-person committee hearings this week and last, at which speakers waited outside meeting rooms for their turn to give testimony and watched proceedings mostly on video monitors installed in the Capitol.
