Women, Young People, Black Folks–Every Vote MATTERS

I get it. I do. If you want to get angry, get angry at the Republicans in power. They wanted to MAKE IT A DAMNED NUISANCE in hopes that fewer people would go to the polls. Historically, when fewer people go to the polls, their people generally win. It’s a form of voter suppression. They will try EVERY cheating method they can find.

One of the things that I would like to propose to you as a means of combatting this nonsense is ADDING the concept of what is called “ranked choice” voting. Let me explain how it works. (Other places are already using it and they really like it.)

Let’s say we have a slate of candidates for Mayor of Some City.

• Robert Bowie -Republican
• Sandra Smith-Democrat
• Nakita Hines Jones – Green
• Harriet Jordan – independent
• Scott Wright – Socialist Democrat
• Bruce Tallman – Nationalist
• Bubba Plowman- Peoples
• Trevor Galbraith – Libertarian

The way this works is that you, as the voter, would be asked to take the entire slate of candidates and RANK them in order 1-8 that you would want to see them elected to that particular office.

Let’s say that all the votes come back in. I’ll make this fairly simple for clarity.

• Sandra Smith – Democrat gets 10 first place votes, 6 second place votes, 2 thirds
• Robert Bowie – Republican 9 first place, 5 second, 4 third
• Nakita Hines Jones – Green O first 0 second 8 third
• Harriet Jordan – Independent 2 first 2 second 2 third
• the rest of the ticket didn’t get any votes at all

The candidate that got the MOST #1 votes running against the entire ballot was Sandra Smith, Democrat. That would mean that she won the seat.

If she and the next person had gotten the same number of #1 votes, the Elections people would have looked at the number of #2 votes and decided on the basis of that. In this case, she still would have won the seat. It would have been decided right then with NO RUN0FF.

This very rapidly eliminates those candidates who get the lowest scores (4-8). The ones that get the top three scores are then evaluated for the one that gets the MOST #1 scores. This is the method that eliminated Sarah Palin from the candidate pool for Congress not once but twice from Alaska this year. This resulted in the election of the FIRST Native American (Mary Peltola) from that state and from those nations to Congress.

This change would pretty much ELIMINATE the need for run-off voting entirely. This would not only #1. speed up the election process in general, but also #2. save money from having to run the extra elections. That is just the taxpayer money. It also saves the time, effort and money of the candidates and donors who have to fork out to run for office.

FYI-DEMOCRATS sponsored the legislation to put dropboxes in every advance voting location. It was the REPUBLICANS who mandated that they be brought INSIDE the Elections offices so they would be inaccessible after the office was closed for the day (usually after 5:00 pm) instead of the previous time of 7:00 pm. This meant that people driving home from work could no longer have access to the boxes on their way home from work. More voter suppression at work here.

My solution? Put the boxes in fire stations or sheriffs’ offices. Those places are manned 24/7, they are ALWAYS lighted with parking, it would be a fairly simple matter to put up surveillance cameras on the boxes (heck, hunting cameras are only about $100/each), and just have elections employees empty them on a regular basis. That would make the boxes available to the public 24/7 which is what we REALLY NEED for people who work double shifts, odd hours, or jobs like LD OTR truckers who never know when they are getting in. Why do Republicans want to DUMP this BS on honest people? Put the boxes out where they are accessible and allow people to vote!!

What’s with this “extra” business of proving who you are on the absentee ballot application AND the ballot itself stuff anyway? Good Lord. The things are BARCODED. That alone ensures that there is only ONE assigned to any particular individual. You are unique. Nobody else can create another ballot and vote in your name without setting off alarm bells all over creation. So just how does this requirement help with the rampant paranoia running around this state? It doesn’t. Pardon my choice of words, but it’s asinine. (I do apologize to the ass family. They’re much smarter than this.)

I have two reasons for being put out about this really. I’ve already talked about the sheer profound obtuse stupidity of it, but the other thing is that they waste the taxpayers’ money doing this when there are REAL things that need to be addressed. I’m talking about things such as:

1. Our abysmal public system that has sunk to the bottom of the national rankings and is going lower. But what does Brian Kemp say about it? “Our schools are better than ever.” Give me a break. All anyone has to do is a simple Google search to see the national rankings to see that we rank 36th/50. (If you want a schoolhouse score, that would be 28/100. That’s a miserable score. But if you ask him, he’ll tell you that they scored better than last year. You know why? Because the School Super compares Georgia schools to Georgia schools-not to the NATIONAL standards. BTW, they stopped doing that under Perdue because they were cutting the budgets so much that the quality was sinking faster than the Titanic’s anchor.
2. We need JOBS that are out in the rural areas of our counties. These big box businesses like Amazon, KIA, Kellogg, and Remington are fantastic for the cities, but they pull workers out of our rural areas. We need body shops, hair salons, daycares, grocery stores, convenience stores, restaurants (not just fast food), and hardware stores in our rural small towns. What are they doing to help rural Georgia?
3. Housing that REAL people can afford. I’m talking about people who can’t afford the mortgages on these $300-400k behemoths the developers are putting up. Where are the grocery store clerks supposed to lay their heads? I’m talking about the couple who got married straight out of high school with a baby on the way. Their income is maybe $25K/year. What are they supposed to afford? They can’t afford the rent AND the daycare these days. What are our General Assembly people doing about that?

There’s more, but I’m tired of them yapping about election fraud when the Secretary of State’s office proved conclusively in 2022 that there WASN’T ANY. I want them to stop wasting time and money and get to work doing something USEFUL.

That’s why I want to be your State Senator. I want to get up there and get REAL work done instead of farting around and trying to look important. You need somebody who will listen to you and work to fix your real problems. I am that person. Tell your friends and neighbors. Spread the word.

Ask me to come speak to your group. All I ask is that you help pay for my gas.

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