Georgia should get rid of its runoff system for general elections, the state's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a statement released Wednesday, arguing that it places too much of a burden on voters and election officials, The Hill reported.
"Georgia is one of the only states in [the] country with a General Election Runoff," Raffensperger said. "We’re also one of the only states that always seems to have a runoff. I’m calling on the General Assembly to visit the topic of the General Election Runoff and consider reforms."
He made the remarks just over a week after the state went through its second Senate runoff election in less than two years, with Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock defeating Republican Herschel Walker.
Georgia law mandates that a candidate must get more than 50% of the vote in a general election to win. If no one reaches that mark, there is a runoff between the two candidates that received the most votes.
In every other state except Louisiana, a candidate only needs to win a plurality of the vote to be elected.
Georgia last year made its runoff election system even more demanding when it put into place a law that shortened the runoff period from nine weeks to four weeks, which includes Thanksgiving.
A spokesperson for Raffensperger's office told NBC News that election workers are "burned out" at the end of a long election season and that runoff elections are disliked by candidates, voters, campaigns, and also the county workers.
Raffensperger, a Republican, emphasized that the new law made the entire process too arduous and put unnecessary pressure on county officials and voters, especially during the holiday season, according to The Hill.
"No one wants to be dealing with politics in the middle of their family holiday," he said. "It’s even tougher on the counties who had a difficult time completing all of their deadlines, an election audit and executing a runoff in a four-week time period."
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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