In Georgia’s recent primary election, six congressional races and four statewide races had to be settled with a runoff election held on June 21. Better Ballot Georgia has analyzed the voter turnout and reports that the falloff in voter participation between the May 24 primary and the June 21 primary runoff is shocking.

In all six congressional and four statewide runoffs, over half the voters did not come back to choose between the two top finishers. In one case the drop off was over 70%. The average drop off rate was 62%. A full picture of this data follows at the end of the article.

Our government is based on the principle that the people select their leaders and that every eligible citizen has the right – and the obligation - to know the candidates and participate in this process. However,  we so often see that only a fraction of the electorate chooses the candidates in party primaries and eventually chooses the winning candidate, who then serves in office.

Unfortunately, what we saw this year is all too typical. Even in our best years, we seldom see voter turnout in the first round of voting go as high as 70% of all registered voters. It usually dips well below this. In this year’s June primary,  turnout was especially low. In the vote for governor, 1,931,910 Georgians cast either a Republican or a Democratic primary ballot. Slightly fewer cast a vote in the US Senate race. Down ballot, the number totals become lower. As of April 20th, Georgia had 7,679,033 registered voters. This means that, of the people who could have voted, only 25% bothered to show up on May 24th. Combine this observation with the fact that less than 40% of the 5/24 voters came back on 6/21, and you see that in these ten runoff races, 10% of the voters will have decided who goes on the ballot in November.

Better Ballot Georgia encourages every eligible voter to cast an informed vote in every election. However, even if people can’t be motivated to get out and vote, there is one simple change we could make that would allow us to better measure the will of the people who do turn out. We should keep  our requirement for a runoff, but  ask voters to rank their choices in races with more than two candidates. This would allow us to determine the winner in these races instantly, once the voting is certified and avoid the drop off that almost always occurs in runoff elections .

As we know, increasing voter participation is only one advantage of Ranked Choice Voting. It saves money, and in cities around the country where it has been used for several cycles, it has been shown to produce more civil discourse between the candidates with reduces negative campaigning. So let’s spread the word. RCV makes for a better democracy!