Another round of early voting kicks off Monday morning at the county government annex on North Columbia Street.
The primary election runoff will feature four items on the Democratic ballot and six on the Republican ballot, respectively. Early voting is 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and runs through Friday. There is no Saturday voting.
The rules for a primary runoff are somewhat nuanced. Voters who chose a particular party ballot (Democrat or Republican) in the May 19 primary must select the same ballot in the runoff. However, those who took a non-partisan ballot in the primary (which was less than 2 percent of voters) can select either a Democrat or Republican ballot. Finally, if you didn’t vote in the primary, you can still vote in the runoff and obviously remain free to choose either a Democrat ballot or a Republican ballot.
Perhaps the most interesting race, based on the sheer number of commercials, is the GOP gubernatorial runoff, where billionaire Rick Jackson continues to spend historic amounts of money, relative to a campaign for governor in Georgia. Jackson commercials seemingly are running on WMAZ/Channel 13 right now more than Mike Hostillo and Ken Nugent combined. The Jackson campaign spent more than $80 million leading up to the May 19 primary, and the dollar amount is expected to approach or exceed $100 million by June 16. Roughly 85 percent of Jackson’s campaign spending is self-financed. The Jones campaign, by contrast, spent roughly $20 million leading up to the primary.
Jones received more than 38 percent of the vote in the May 19 primary, while Jackson received more than 32 percent. However, Jackson actually had the most “early votes,” albeit by a margin of less than 2,000 votes. Nevertheless, this gives the Jackson campaign more hope, as people who vote early are more likely to show back up to the polls in a runoff.