Elections in Georgia (U.S. state)

Elections in Georgia are held to fill various state and federal seats. Regular elections are held every even year. The positions being decided each year varies, as the terms of office varies. The State Senate, State House and U.S. House will typically be up for election, as all of those positions have two-year terms. Special elections are held to fill vacated offices. Georgia is one of seven states that require a run-off election if no candidate receives a majority of the vote in a primary election and one of only two states (the other being Mississippi) that require a run-off election for state and congressional offices if no candidate wins a majority of the vote in a general election; Louisiana has a similar requirement, but it operates under a different election system.[1][2]

In a 2018 ranking of U.S. states by perceived electoral integrity (PEI), Georgia ranked 51st among all U.S. states and District of Columbia. While all other states' perceived electoral integrity was valued at very high, high or moderate, Georgia was the only state in the rankings to be designated as a state with low perceived electoral integrity. It scored 49 out of 100 in the 2018 PEI index, getting lowest marks in voting boundaries (18 out of 100) and the highest in Party and candidate registration (67 out of 100).[3] In the 2020 PEI index, Georgia's score had risen from 49 to 74.[4]

A 2020 study ranked Georgia as the second most difficult state for citizens to vote in, primarily for a reduction of polling stations by 50 percent or more since 2012 in parts of the state.[5]

  1. ^ Wilson, Reid (4 June 2014). "Runoff elections a relic of the Democratic South". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 25 October 2014. Retrieved 16 October 2014.
  2. ^ Hood III, M.V. (19 July 2014). "Hood: Georgia is one of few states with primary runoff balloting". Athens Banner-Herald. Archived from the original on 21 October 2014. Retrieved 16 October 2014.
  3. ^ "PEI-US-2018 — the Electoral Integrity Project EIP". Archived from the original on 2020-08-31. Retrieved 2020-09-11.
  4. ^ "Electoral Integrity in the 2020 U.S. Elections". www.hks.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2024-09-13.
  5. ^ J. Pomante II, Michael; Li, Quan (15 Dec 2020). "Cost of Voting in the American States: 2020". Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy. 19 (4): 503–509. doi:10.1089/elj.2020.0666. S2CID 225139517.