No, Josh, voters shouldn’t pay for one-party rule

Stacking the deck in Georgia

Georgia Republicans, in their never ending efforts to ensure that no Democrat ever gets elected in this state again, are pushing to change our primary election system. GA GOP chair Josh McKoon considers it a matter of “election integrity. ”

“It’s just common sense to limit participation in Republican primaries to those voters who declare their allegiance to the Republican Party so our nominees reflect the philosophy of our voters,” he said.

For those unfamiliar with the process, Georgia has an “open primary system.” That means, we don’t register to vote by party. Any registered voter is free to choose either party’s primary ballot. That voter is under no obligation to vote for the same party in November.

The only restriction is that if there is a primary runoff, you can only vote in the same party election that you voted for in the original primary. If you didn’t vote at all in the primary election, you can vote in either party’s runoff election (but you can only choose one.) Easy enough!

So, why is this important? Well, because Georgia is pretty much a one party state. For over 100 years, it was a Democratic state. Then, in 2002, Sonny Perdue became the first Republican elected governor since Reconstruction. And Republicans have won every statewide election since then – with the notable exception of our two sitting Senators who both won election in 2021 in that debacle of a runoff election after Donald Trump questioned the validity of November’s results. But for the most part, the Republican primary IS the election. Most races won’t even have opponents on the November ballot. Many voters realize this and vote in the Republican primary, just to have SOME say on their elected officials.

Where things get really dicey are in the blue districts of this red state. I used to live in DeKalb County. The GOP was officially declared extinct in DeKalb in 2018. Before that it was simply endangered. Now, there’s not a single Republican county commissioner, state representative or state Senator. If dog catcher were an elected office, you can rest assured that person would be a Democrat in DeKalb County.

This leaves voters with a horrible choice: pull a Democratic primary ballot and have a say in your local officials, or pull a Republican primary ballot and choose your statewide officials. Who says we don’t have choices?

In my humble opinion, this is the root of our whole electoral problem. In general, only 20 percent of registered voters participate in primary elections. That means about 10 percent (give or take) of voters are selecting the eventual November winners due to overwhelming party partisanship. Why should I have to declare my allegiance to one party or the other? Why can’t I have the option of deciding on a case by case basis which one I support?

I guess it comes down to this question: Whose election is it anyway? Is a primary election only meant for loyal members of that party? Or is it part of the larger electoral process? Who’s paying for them? Well, that would be the taxpayers of the state. We all fund elections – primary, runoff and general – with our tax dollars. Therefore, we ALL deserve to participate in this process.

So, Josh, I’ll make you a deal: if the GA GOP wants to pay for its own primaries, then it can select candidates however the hell it chooses. Make party members sign a blood oath to the GOP. Have a political convention (as some states do) or a caucus. Or just draw names out of a hat for that matter! As my Daddy used to tell me when I was a teenager “When you start paying your own bills, you can do whatever you want.”

But if you want taxpayers to fund your coronation process, then you have to let all of us participate in it. That’s only fair.

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