Georgia Special Election Runoff Garners 6% Voter Turnout
Carl Gilliard won a special runoff election for House District 162 of Georgia’s State House, to fill the seat of Representative Bob Bryant, who passed away earlier this year. Georgia held a runoff election about a month after the original special election, as Gilliard fell just short of a majority with only 46% of the vote. He won handily in the runoff, beating challenger Alicia Blakely 73% to 27%. Only about 6% of the 23,000 registered voters across 19 precincts showed up to vote in the runoff election.
Georgia should adopt ranked choice voting–also known as “instant runoff voting”–for situations as these. This would allow voters to rank candidates in order of choice, so that if no candidate receives a majority, an instant runoff can take place based on voters rankings. This would allow the state to save money by avoiding the costs associated with a runoff, and maximize turnout in one election, while still achieving the same democratic results.
