SANDY SPRINGS, Ga.—Georgia voters headed to the polls on Dec. 6 with a single race on the ballot, the runoff between Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock that will determine if Republicans share control of the U.S. Senate.
It was a rainy morning across much of the Atlanta metro area and north Georgia, but the forecast promised better weather later in the day.
Deputy Secretary of State Gabriel Sterling said in posts on Twitter that lines were initially about 7 minutes long around the state as they handled the backlog lined up before doors opened at 7 a.m.
But by about 9:30 a.m., he posted, the average wait times statewide had dropped to one minute and 45 seconds, with average check-in times of 43 seconds.
Voting was light in the early morning darkness at Spalding Drive Elementary School in suburban Sandy Springs but picked up as the sky lightened and the rain eased to a drizzle.
A half-dozen voters apologetically declined to be interviewed by The Epoch Times, saying they were hurrying to work.
Janelle Tzanetakos, 44, who has two children at the school, told The Epoch Times she turned out to vote for Warnock “because I didn’t want the vote to go a different way than I wanted.”
Jenn Coulson, 39, who also voted for Warnock, told The Epoch Times, “it’s an important race, and we’ve got to keep the Democrats in control of the Senate. I’m a lawyer, and the appointment of federal judges is very important to me.”
Christina Thompson, 35, told The Epoch Times one reason she came out to vote was trying to do a better job generally voting in non-presidential elections like local elections and runoffs.
“I voted Democratic. I feel like Raphael Warnock is a good person, and I care a lot about women’s rights which he supports. And one of his goals is to lower prescription drug costs. That’s very important.”
Almost 27 percent of the state’s registered active voters had already voted by absentee ballot or in early voting.
During the campaign, Democrats went to court to institute early Saturday voting.
Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Nov. 9 had said Saturday voting would probably be permitted, then reversed himself a few days later, citing a law banning voting the day after a holiday. The Friday after Thanksgiving in Georgia is a holiday.
The Democrats sued, won, and the Republicans appealed twice but failed both times.
This was the first statewide runoff of a general election since the state’s 2021 election reform.
Republicans have said their 2021 reforms of state election laws—primarily to tighten up lax controls of absentee ballots during 2020’s pandemic lockdown—have made it “easy to vote but hard to cheat.”
Some politicos said Democrats’ desire for the additional voting days was less about getting black voters to the polls and more about age.
They hoped to get young voters who were home for Thanksgiving, Marci McCarthy, chairman of the DeKalb County Republican Party, told The Epoch Times. That demographic heavily favors Democrats.
“They were banking on younger voters to show up, maybe when they were home from college, but they didn’t show up,” McCarthy said.
By comparison, nearly 49 percent of active voters aged 65 or over voted early. That demographic, which tends to favor Republicans in Georgia, represented more than 38 percent of those casting early ballots.
Republican leaders differ on how Walker might close his 38,000-vote Election Day gap with Warnock.
Ralph Reed, chairman and founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, told The Epoch Times last week he looked to several sources for Walker to gain new votes.
There are the 81,000 voters who backed third-place Libertarian Chase Oliver in the general election, with polls suggesting Walker could get two-thirds of those who returned for the runoff, Reed said.
And he hoped Walker could bring back some of about 200,000 who voted for Republican Brian Kemp for governor but split their ticket to vote for Warnock.
Kemp has endorsed Walker and campaigned with him, Reed said, and that would make an impression on some voters.
McCarthy said she thought most of both groups, plus about 40,000 who voted but skipped over the Senate race, would stay home.
“I don’t think they'll come back out,” she said. “Or the 2 percent who voted Libertarian. I’m not seeing any endorsements from the Libertarians. Sit in a line for 35 minutes or two hours plus? I don’t think so.”
She said that the race would come down to dedicated party voters and favor the party that does a better job turning out its base.
If the ticket-splitters who voted for Warnock in November don’t return, that’s a net loss to him, she said. Such voters made Warnock the highest Democrat vote-getter in Georgia in November, well ahead of Stacey Abrams in her race for governor.
Polls showed Warnock beginning to edge ahead. The Real Clear Politics average of polls of likely voters had him ahead by 3.7 percent, and three of five polls done over the weekend showed him with a lead beyond the margin of error.
