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Something that is not lost on me but I forgot to mention is that the runoff system in Georgia was created explicitly to keep men like Raphael Warnock from taking office.
This seems like time for a mini-thread, as multiple people have already asked me to explain why.
So here we go:
The racist origins on Georgia’s runoff elections.
So here we go:
The racist origins on Georgia’s runoff elections.
Before 1962 Georgia’s elections operated under a county-unit system where counties were individually given a vote and a candidate had to earn the majority of the units. Ostensibly to mirror the electoral college, instead what it did was eliminate the power of urban counties.
That system was abolished in 1962, clearing the way for the “one person one vote” standard. When it was abolished a new system had to be put into place.
Enter in State Rep. and segregationist Denmark Groover.
Enter in State Rep. and segregationist Denmark Groover.
Groover had a grudge. In 1958 he had lost his race due to the turnout of the Black vote turning out against him in a 5 to 1 margin. So he devised the runoff system where if no candidate gets a majority of the votes a second election is held with only the top two candidates.
Groover’s fear was that Black Georgians would vote for one candidate where the white vote would split to multiple candidates. Keep in mind this was at the height of an era where party identities were changing with the Democrats embracing Civil Rights.
Decades later Groover would admit his intentions, which were barely concealed at the time:
“I was a segregationist. [...] But if you want to establish if I was racially prejudiced, I was. If you want to establish that some of my political activity was racially motivated, it was”
“I was a segregationist. [...] But if you want to establish if I was racially prejudiced, I was. If you want to establish that some of my political activity was racially motivated, it was”
At the time no one could imagine a majority of Georgians ever voting for a Black candidate.
It took far too long but they were wrong.
It took far too long but they were wrong.
