Why Are There Runoff Elections in Georgia?

(In the spirit of NaBloPoMo, I am publishing this post without fully editing it.  I will refine it over the weekend.)

If you are sick of election and political related blog posts and news, feel free to skip right over this blog post.  You might enjoy reading why I am thankful for my children or what it is like to be licked by a giraffe instead.  If not, stick around to learn why there are runoff elections in Georgia.

If you really care about politics and you are not completely burned out from the elections, you may have heard in the past week or so that there is a runoff election in Georgia for the US Senate seat.  In Georgia, it is state law that a candidate must win the General Election by 50% + 1 vote.  That means that if you get 49.999999999999% of the vote, you will still go to a runoff with the candidate who had the next highest votes.  I think this is the law for every race but President where the candidate with the majority votes wins the Electoral Votes for the state. 

On November 4th, our incumbent Republican US Senator Saxby Chambliss received 49.8% of the vote.  Now he is in a runoff election with the Democrat candidate Jim Martin.  The runoff election is on December 2.  For political activists and campaign volunteers, this means there is still work to do throughout the next few weeks.  While my family will be celebrating Thanksgiving and decorating our tree in coming weeks, we will also be volunteer for Sen. Saxby Chambliss. 

Incidently there are also 2 other statewide races on the ballot:  Appeals Court Judge and Public Service Commission District 4 – Northern. 

Here is a little bit of political trivia about Georgia.  In 1992 after then President-Elect Bill Clinton won the General Election, there was a runoff between Democrat Sen. Wyche Folwer and Paul Coverdell.  Republican Paul Coverdell won that election.  It is often said that he was the first victory of the 1994 Republican Revolution.  He served 8 years before dying of a stroke.  He died while still serving in the US Senate.  Georgia’s Democrat Governor Roy Barnes appointed former Democrat Governor Zell Miller to fill Sen. Coverdell’s unexpired term. 

Many, many Georgia Republicans were upset at the time that our beloved Sen. Coverdell’s seat was filled by a Democrat.  As it turned out, when Sen. Zell Miller went to Washington, DC, he realized that the political party he had spent his whole life supporting had left him and spoke about this at the 2004 Republican National Convention.

In December, there will be one of 2 outcomes:  the Democrats in DC will be one seat closer to having free reign of Congress with a fillibuster-proof Senate or maybe, just maybe the Republicans will being the road to a new “revolution” by re-electing Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss.  It should be intersting.

By the way, are you wondering why am I supporting Sen. Saxby Chambliss? If not, go read about my sweet potato recipes or check out some of these new blogs I have found recently.  If so, here is why.  Sen. Chambliss has not always voted the most conservative Republican votes.  He has represented Republican values more than 80% of the time and will represent those values more than a Democrat.  Sen. Chamliss has and will stand for our national security needs, he has and will stand with our military and our veterans, and he will continue to push for the FairTax.  Sometimes it is not just what values a person stands for but what values he will stand against.  In this case, Saxby will oppose plans to redistrubte wealth, he will oppose plans to raise our taxes, he will oppose any plans to grant amnesty to illegal aliens, he will oppose any plans to restrict our Second Amendment rights, he will oppose any plans to remove the secret ballot from union elections, and finally he will oppose the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” and any attempt to silence conservative media outlets.

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