Yes, the runoff benefited Democrats in 2020, but that's doesn't change its history. Especially since Georgia AGAIN passed changes after white folks lost both Senate seats in 2020. In 1963, the Supreme Court ruled Georgia's unit vote system unconstitutional. They adopted the current runoff system in response to that ruling, just like they changed their election law in response to losing those two Senate seats in 2020.
I'm sorry, but I am convinced that the reason Walker got less votes then Kemp is because there were voters that just couldn't vote for ANY black candidate, so they left the Senate choice on their ballot blank.
-------------------------------------------------
Georgia adopted runoffs after a previous electoral system that favored white voters was overturned.
Beginning in 1917, Georgia used something called the county unit system in primary elections, which operated sort of like a state-level electoral college. Under this system, each of Georgia’s 159 counties was classified as urban, town or rural. In statewide primaries, like for governor, urban counties received six “unit votes,” town counties received four and rural counties received two. A candidate who won a plurality of votes in a county received all of that county’s “unit votes.” Since Georgia’s minority communities were concentrated in urban counties, and white voters were spread throughout rural counties, this system allowed rural counties to prevail against their urban counterparts, thereby giving outsize electoral power to white voters in the Peach State.
In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the county unit system was unconstitutional for violating the “one person, one vote” principle articulated the prior year in Baker v. Carr. In response, Georgia legislators set about devising new ways to maintain white political power. State representative Denmark Groover (D) advocated adopting runoffs for all Georgia elections as a replacement for the county unit system, stating on the Georgia House floor that “we have got to go to the majority vote because all we have to have is a plurality and the Negroes and the pressure groups and special interests are going to manipulate this State and take charge if we don’t go for the majority vote.” His proposal was adopted as part of the state’s election reform package passed in 1964.
In the 1990s, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit against Georgia’s primary runoff system, arguing the system violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) by diluting the voting strength of Black Georgians. The DOJ identified 35 Georgia elections where Black candidates received a plurality of votes in the first round of a primary but lost their runoffs when white voters coalesced around their opponent. The DOJ’s lawsuit was eventually consolidated with Brooks v. Miller, a challenge brought by a group of Black voters. In 1998, although the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded the runoff system didn’t violate the VRA, it nevertheless agreed that “the virus of race-consciousness was in the air” when it was adopted.
= new reply since forum marked as read
