by A Georgia state lawmaker introduced a bill to lower the threshold needed to avoid a runoff election after residents voted in a runoff in 2020 and 2022.
Georgia election laws currently require a candidate to earn 50% plus one vote to win an election outright and avoid a runoff. But the law proposed this week would lower the threshold to 45%.
“We have too many choices here in Georgia,” state Rep. Saira Draper, D, told FOX 5 Atlanta.
“Basically what it stands for is the so-called spoiler candidate — the candidate who’s going to get one or two percent of the vote who doesn’t represent the values of the people — but again, that prevents any candidate from getting 50%,” he continued Drape.
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A Georgia state lawmaker introduced a bill to lower the threshold needed to avoid a runoff election after residents voted in a runoff in 2020 and 2022.
Georgia has seen a runoff in the last two elections for seats in the US Senate.
In 2020, Republican David Perdue faced Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Kelly Loeffler went up against Democrat Raphael Warnock. Ossoff and Warnock eventually won their races after a run-off two months later.
And in 2022, Warnock was challenged for his Senate seat by Republican Herschel Walker, with Warnock winning re-election after a runoff.
In both cases, a Libertarian Party candidate earned 2% of the vote in the general election, which helped keep the Republican and Democratic candidates from surpassing the 50% threshold.
“We’ve looked at all the state runoff elections that stemmed from general elections over the last 15 years, and if this 45% threshold had been in place then, we wouldn’t have seen any of these runoff elections,” Draper said.
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Georgia election laws require a candidate to earn 50% plus one vote to win an election outright and avoid a runoff. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
Georgia’s runoff election brings in fewer voters than the general election, and according to Kennesaw State University researchers, the 2020 U.S. Senate race cost the state $75 million statewide.
And Draper says a runoff doesn’t change the outcome of a race in most cases. An exception, however, is the 2020 election between Perdue and Ossoff. Da-Sen. Perdue had earned more votes in the general election, receiving 49.7% of the vote, but lost to Ossoff in the runoff election on January 5, 2021.
Asked how her bill would have changed the outcome of the election between Perdue and Ossoff, Draper said her proposal would not favor Republicans or Democrats.
“My belief is that good politics is not partisan,” Draper said. “This is a good policy.”
She acknowledged that people may oppose the bill because a candidate who earns only 45% does not represent a majority of voters. Libertarian Chase Oliver, who is running for Senate in the 2022 election, said in an interview in October that he doesn’t think a candidate should represent the state without even getting a majority of the popular vote.
The legislation proposed this week would lower the threshold needed to avoid runoff to 45%. (AP)
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But Draper pushes back on this argument by noting that fewer votes in a runoff.
“When we have run-offs, we always see a drop – a huge drop – in turnout. So even in run-offs you might get a 50% threshold, but that’s a lower raw number of votes than you had in that general election, and I think it does not necessarily represent the will of the people, she said.
The bill has been assigned to a committee and has no Republican co-sponsors. It is unclear whether the proposal will receive a hearing.
