The Georgia GOP would like to hear your opinion

A trip down the primary sample ballot questions

The 2024 primary is coming up soon. Early voting has already started. Where does the time go?

It feels like we just did this. In preparation, I downloaded a sample ballot to see if there was anything I needed to research. I wasn’t even planning to vote. There’s no statewide race this year, and my representatives are running unopposed. But my neighborhood gets to weigh in on a cityhood proposal, so I have to.

Credit: Peggy_Marco/Pixabay

In addition to ACTUAL elections, the state GOP has added a bunch of polling questions. Do not be fooled! Your vote does not count. None of these carry any weight, and none will actually become legislation. This is just the MAGA crowd scratching an itch and giving its people a false feeling of empowerment. Kind of like voting on countless resolutions at the state convention that likewise will not effect a single change but let conservatives vent their collective spleen at our elected officials.

But if the party wants my opinion, I am more than happy to share it. It’s what I live for.

Question 1: For future elections, do you want hand-marked paper ballots, scanned and verified by hand count on live stream video?

Dear God, NO! Do you think it takes Fulton County a long time to count votes NOW? If we make them count all the paper ballots by hand, we won’t know who gets elected until the term is halfway over. And given the recent threats of political violence against poll workers, nobody in their right mind would want to do it on live video. But maybe that’s the whole point.

Question 2: Should the legislature enact the FairTax replacing the state income tax and state sales tax with a consumption tax equal to current state funding and taxing no legal citizen or family up to the poverty level of spending?

There was a time when I would have been all in favor of this. Like many Georgia conservatives, I was a huge fan of talk radio host Neal Boortz. He wrote a whole book about the Fair Tax that made it sound like a great idea. But Boortz is retired, as is former Congressman John Linder, who co-authored the book and its corresponding legislation. If you really want all the details, go read it. But the truth is that it doesn’t matter whether I’m in favor of it or whether it’s even a good idea. IT’S NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN. It’s too complicated and never gained traction with anyone outside of right-wing talk radio fanatics.

Question 3: Should the legislature ban registered lobbyists from serving on the State Elections Board?

I don’t know. Probably. But I’m sure this question is directed at someone who has raised the MAGA ire. Maybe someone can give me the background as to what prompted this question.

Question 4: Should the Georgia Republican Primary have a closed primary, meaning that only registered Republicans would be allowed to vote in the Republican Primary?

There should be a “HELL NO” option on this question. This is a terrible idea. For some unfathomable reason, Georgia seems incapable of two-party government. It was a Democratic state for 150 years, and then it flipped to being a Republican state in 2002. The Republican primary is the de facto election for the vast majority of statewide offices. So, basically, you’re asking if every Democrat in this state should be disenfranchised from having a say in who the next Governor is.

I have a better idea: we need to get rid of party primaries altogether. Put all the names on the ballot. The top two will proceed to the general election. Implement ranked-choice voting.

Question 5: Should public officials who allow illegal migration to occur be held responsible for crimes committed by illegal aliens?

Are you also going to hold the sheriff and the chief of police responsible if your house is robbed? I get it. Illegal immigration is bad. Our elected officials have ignored the problem for too long. But there’s already a proposal in Congress that would greatly help fix this problem. And all of our elected Republican Congressmen are refusing to vote for it because Donald Trump told them not to. Are we going to hold all of THEM accountable? Because if so, then I’m a big “yes” on this question.

Question 6: Would you support a statewide vote to allow gaming in Georgia so the voters can decide this issue instead of politicians in Atlanta?

I’m a bigger “hell no” on gaming in Georgia than I am on closed primaries. Do you want to see an increase in crime, poverty, sex trafficking, gangsters, and all the other stuff Fox News tells you is destroying our country? Then, by all means, open a casino in the state.

Question 7: Currently, hundreds of thousands of hours and dollars are spent every year cleaning up voter rolls. Would you support an amendment to the National Voting Rights Act that would require registered voters to renew their registration every four years?

Oh, here’s ANOTHER proposal to make voting harder! Big “no.” Did you know that there’s already a cooperative where states work together to check the voting rolls? It’s called the Electronic Registration Information Center. But now Republican states are withdrawing from a program that works because Donald Trump doesn’t like it. You don’t get to create a problem and then demand legislation to fix it. That’s what we always criticized the Democrats for doing.

Question 8: Do you believe unelected and unaccountable international bureaucrats, like the UN-controlled World Health Organization (WHO), should have complete control over management of future pandemics in the United States and authority to regulate your healthcare and personal health choices?

Y’all have been getting your news from TikTok again, haven’t you? Yes, the evil global cabal is coming to control your life. It’s right there in Revelation. End of days. One world government. There is no plan for a proposed “world pandemic treaty,” and even if there were, the WHO does not have the power to come into the United States and lock up the unvaccinated. (Yeah, that’s just what the Illuminati WANT you to think.)

Our next section contains questions from our county GOP. It’s just as ridiculous and meaningless as the previous section.

Question 9: Do you support issuing school vouchers?

Again, it does not matter WHAT I think. The state legislature just passed a new voucher program. The governor signed it. The state will implement it and we’ll see how it goes. For the record, I’m hoping it improves education in this state. We’ll see.

Questions 10 and 11: Do you believe, at this time, Gwinnett County has too many high-density housing units? Should there be a moratorium on building additional high-density apartment homes? [Note for non-Georgians, Gwinnett County is an Atlanta suburb.]

Define too many. You can’t swing a dead cat around here without hitting a new housing development. People want to move here. They have to live somewhere. We don’t want to expand MARTA (Atlanta’s mass transit system) up here, we don’t want to build low-income housing, and yet we still want people to staff all the drive-ins and retail establishments. My favorite restaurant had to cancel lunch service because they couldn’t staff it. Until someone invents that transporter from Star Trek so that we can beam low-income people up here to work and then send them back where they came from, we need places for them to live so they can get to their jobs. You think it’s bad living in a county with high growth? Go move to one of those rural counties that can’t keep a hospital open, and you have to drive an hour to get to a grocery store.

(Side note: this is what my local incorporation vote is about. We can’t stop the county commission from approving new housing, so we’re going to start up our own city to regulate it. Of course, that won’t stop them from building a mile from here, outside the city limits.)

Question 12: Would you support a $17 BILLION 30-year sales tax for transit only in Gwinnett County?

Wait, so we spent 30 years voting no on MARTA for what? If we’re going to spend this much money, I want to be able to catch a train into Atlanta.

Question 13: Do you believe that increasing crime is a major problem in Gwinnett?

Does it matter what I BELIEVE? Are we into faith-based criminal justice now? Personally, no. I haven’t been mugged. Nobody has broken into a house in my neighborhood. Thank God that nobody I know has been shot at a gas station. Show me some actual crime statistics from a valid source (not Fox News or Tucker Carlson.) If crime is increasing, then let’s work on a plan to decrease it, because taking a public opinion poll doesn’t move the needle in either direction.

I’m sure the Georgia Democratic party has some equally asinine questions on their ballots. Ifanyone wants to send them to me, I will be happy to provide equally thoughtful responses in the interest of bipartisanship.