Anyone dialed into this year’s political discourse would reasonably expect this election cycle to be volatile, but not the way we saw on Tuesday. Voters in at least eight counties here experienced considerable delays when they went to the polls to cast votes in the primary. Whether the delay in exercising the franchise was due to lack of training or technical machine error, the matter became the refrain of attack valley between county and state officials. The delays did result in the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office opening an investigation of the delays after calling them ”unacceptable.”

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, told local NBC affiliate WXIA the election was going smoothly across much of the state, except in the metro Atlanta counties of DeKalb and Fulton. Former Democratic gubernatorial candidate and former Georgia House minority leader Stacey Abrams told WABE that “across the state, 20 counties led by Democrats and Republicans, in urban and rural and suburban areas, all experienced some cataclysmic failures.”

New Yorker writer Sue Halpern offers this conclusion in an article from two days ago:

“Georgia is an object lesson in what happens when there are not enough machines, not enough polling places, not enough trained election workers, and election officials with seemingly little allegiance to enfranchising citizens.”

ELECTION RESULTS

Georgia 7th Congressional District Primary 

Republican Rich McCormick will square off against Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux in the race to fill retiring Republican Rob Woodall’s seat. Bourdeaux, a professor at Georgia State University, came within less than 500 votes from flipping the seat in the midterms two years ago. At 50.5%, she bested a competitive field of Democrats that Included Georgia House Rep. Brenda Lopez Romero (13.3%) and Georgia senator Zara Karinshak (6.6%). 

Democratic Candidates	Vote Total	%
Carolyn Bourdeaux	32,470	50.5
Brenda Lopez Romero	8,578	13.3
Nabilah Islam	7,815	12.2
Rashid Malik	6,145	9.6
John Eaves	5,020	7.9
Zahra Karinshak	4,217	6.6

The Democratic primary was originally predicted to lead to a runoff, but the most recent results from June 13, 2020 at 4:30 PM suggest otherwise. 

McCormick, an emergency room doctor, defeated a competitive Republican field that included longtime Georgia senator Renee Unterman (17.7%) and ex-Home Depot executive Lynne Homrich (6.9%).

Republican Candidates	Vote Total	%
Rich McCormick	27,879	55.1
Renee Unterman	8,955	17.7
Mark Gonsalves	3,684	7.3
Lynne Homrich	3,478	6.9
Eugune Yu	2,996	5.1
Zachary Kennemore	993	2.0

U.S. Senate Democratic Primary

Former congressional candidate Jon Ossoff defeated former Columbus mayor Teresa Tomlinson and former lieutenant gubernatorial candidate Sarah Riggs Amico. Democrats Maya Dillard Smith, James Knox, Marckeith DeJesus, and Trisha McCracken participated in the race. 

Democratic Candidates	Vote Total	%
Jon Ossoff	515,960	51.6
Teresa Tomlinson	156,073	15.6
Sarah Riggs Amico	121,887	12.2
Maya Dillard Smith	91,621	9.2
James Knox	44,803	4.5
Marckeith DeJesus	40,846	4.1
Tricia McCracken	29,267	2.9

The other incumbent senator Kelly Loeffler will be in a three way race with Rep. Doug Collins  from the 9th District and Senior Pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church Rafael Warnock. This unusually structured special election, created when long time Senator Johnny Isakson retired, will feature three major party candidates. Loeffler and Collins are Republicans and Warnock is a Democrat. Should neither candidate win 50% of the vote, a runoff will be held on January 5, 2020.