It’s Georgia, Again, in 2024

Editor’s Note: Legal challenges to new rules from State Board of Elections, in progress when this article was published, may change elements of this story.

Buckle up, folks. We’re in for another bumpy ride.

The outcome of the 2020 presidential election hinged on Georgia and a few other states. So may the 2024 election.

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But first, a reminder of how we got here.

Four years ago, Georgia’s 16 Electoral College votes went to Joe Biden — the first time since 1992 that a Democrat won the state — helping the former vice president into the White House and thwarting the re-election bid of incumbent Republican President Donald Trump.

Biden’s margin over Trump was 11,779 votes, a number that became infamous during a Jan. 2, 2021, 67-minute conference call, when Trump pleaded with Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger: “There’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated . . . I just want to find 11,780 votes.”

Raffensperger said no, and after three forms of recount, rejected legal challenges, and an unsuccessful attempt by Trump supporters to substitute Georgia’s Electoral College delegation, the results stood.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump

Nonetheless, Trump has continued to claim, without evidence, that he won Georgia. [The Fulton County case against Trump and several co-defendants, stemming from alleged attempts to interfere with the 2020 results, is on pause, as the Georgia Court of Appeals considers whether misconduct allegations should disqualify District Attorney Fani Willis.]

This time around, the margin in Georgia between Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris might be smaller than between Trump and Biden in 2020. The contest is rated as a toss-up by political data crunchers.

Trump and Harris will have company on Georgia’s ballot, Libertarian Chase Oliver and the Green Party’s Jill Stein. After some legal back and forth, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that votes cast for Socialist Claudia De la Cruz and independent Cornell West will not count — though their names may remain on ballots already printed.

The biggest cliche in electoral politics also is true: It all comes down to turnout.

Nearly 5 million votes were cast in Georgia in 2024. Biden’s winning margin was .23 percent.

As of Oct. 2, there were 8,187,332 registered voters in Georgia, 86.7 percent of whom were considered active voters by the Secretary of State’s office.
Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer of the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, told a Sept. 24 call hosted by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Atlanta that in 2020, some 98 percent of those eligible to vote were registered. This year, with two weeks remaining until the Oct. 7 voter registration deadline, he estimated that the figure was 92 percent or better.

In the 2020 general election, 66.8 percent of registered voters nationally cast ballots, the highest turnout since 1992 and up from 61.4 percent in 2016. In Georgia, turnout in 2020 was 66.2 percent. That means that roughly one of every three registered voters, nationally and in Georgia, did not vote.

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris

Edward Lindsey, a former majority whip for Republicans in the state House and, until recently, a member of the state election board, told an audience at The Temple that 65 percent of votes likely will be cast before Election Day, with 60 percent being cast early in-person and 5 percent by mail. The remaining 35 percent will be in-person votes cast on Nov. 5.

In related news, U.S. Postmaster general Louis DeJoy (a Republican fundraiser and Trump donor appointed during his presidency by the U.S. Postal Service board of governors) sent state election officials nationwide a letter promising cooperation with timely delivery of absentee ballots to voters and their return to state election offices in time to be counted. “As demonstrated consistently in previous elections, election mail routinely outperforms our regular service performance due to our long-standing processes and procedures,” DeJoy wrote.

Beyond the added attention accorded a “battleground state,” the recommendation for seat belts also stems from changes in how ballots will handled and counted, pushed through the State Election Board just weeks before Election Day by three avowed Trump supporters, who form a majority on the five-member, appointed board.

There are 2,400 precincts in Georgia’s 159 counties (only Texas has more counties). Precincts report vote totals to the counties and the counties have a Nov. 12 deadline to certify their counts and the secretary of state’s office faces a similar Nov. 22 deadline.

There is concern that the new rules issued by the State Election Board could complicate matters. Unless blocked by the courts, the changes take effect Oct. 14, the day before early voting begins. “A lot of these rules are being challenged in court, but at the end of the day, what they’re doing is entering a lot of confusion and last-minute angst into the process,” Sterling told the JCRC call.

A rule issued in August would permit county election officials to refuse or delay certifying vote totals, while allowing for a period of “reasonable inquiry,” though that term is not defined nor is the length of such an inquiry. Following a hearing, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, as of Oct. 2, had yet to pass judgment on this rule, though he reiterated the certification deadlines.

At its Sept. 20 meeting, the state election board voted to require precinct level hand counts of all ballots and a match with machine counts before results can be certified, which prompted concerns about increasing the number of people handling ballots and delays in reporting vote totals that could raise public suspicion.

A letter from the Attorney General’s office said, “these proposed rules are not tethered to any statute.”

Raffensperger’s office issued a statement in August calling the state board “unelected bureaucrats who have never run an election” and “seem to reject advice” from those with experience.

Trump hailed the board’s Republican trio as “pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory.”

The post-2020 legislation that created this iteration of the election board also removed the secretary of state, in this case Raffensperger, as its chairman.

The non-partisan Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials sent a letter Sept. 17 to the state election board pleading for relief: “Ballots have been designed, procured, and are presently being issued to military and overseas voters. Election officials are training thousands of poll workers daily across the state and are already working to educate the public on what to expect throughout the voting process and beyond. We respectfully ask that these proposed rules, and any other petitions for rulemaking, be tabled until 2025.”

Democratic state Rep. Saira Draper, an election lawyer from DeKalb County, told the JCRC call: “I hate to use strong words, but the arrogance, you know, from the board is, frankly, quite stunning.”

The presidential race has been a boon for companies that sell advertising. Adimpact, which tracks political advertising, reported that between July 22 (the day after Biden dropped out) and Oct. 1, the Harris campaign and allied groups had spent $67 million in Georgia, compared with $65 million for the Trump campaign and allies.

With Election Day on Nov. 5, Georgians already tired of the campaign ads on broadcast television, cable channels, and streaming services, need to know: Adimpact reported that between Sept. 13 and Election Day on Nov. 5, nearly $70 million of advertising time was reserved in Georgia for the presidential race. The breakdown was $39 million in support of Harris and $29.9 million on behalf of Trump.

Democrats hope that the enthusiasm built on Harris replacing Biden as the party’s nominee will benefit the party’s candidates further down the ballot.

Republicans hold a 9-5 advantage in the Georgia’s congressional delegation. None of the state’s U.S. House races is among the nation’s most competitive.

In the most recent General Assembly session, Republicans occupied 102 of 180 House seats and 33 out of 56 seats in the Senate. There are six Jewish candidates for the state House: one incumbent (Democratic Rep. Esther Panitch) and five newcomers (Democrats Susie Greenberg, Debra Shigley, Eric Castater, and Randye Dugan, and Republican Barry Zisholtz).

Meanwhile, constitutional amendments may be the very definition of a down ballot issue, but at least one on the 2024 ballot could be of great interest.

A proposed amendment to Georgia’s constitution would slow the rate of property tax increases, which tend to accompany rising home values. The amendment, if approved, would cap home property assessment increases at the previous year’s inflation rate. This would, in turn, tamp down property tax increases. The amendment does allow counties to opt-out in 2025. The measure also allows local governments to use proceeds from a 1 percent sales tax to lower property taxes, something that some cities and counties already do. Property taxes are a major funding source for public school districts, which have expressed concern about the measure.