The Athens-Clarke County Commission narrowly approved a resolution last week that could do away with costly and often sparsely attended runoff elections.
The resolution in support of ranked choice voting, also known as instant runoffs, passed 6–5, with Mayor Kelly Girtz breaking the tie. The resolution doesn’t commit ACC to implementing ranked choice voting—where voters rank the candidates in order of preference instead of choosing just one—but asks the state legislature for permission to explore the possibility.
“This is just us saying to the state legislative body, could we have this option?” Commissioner Melissa Link said at a called voting meeting Dec. 17.
If the legislature approves, the local government would gauge public opinion, consult the ACC Board of Elections and possibly hold a countywide runoff before making the change, Link said.
Turnout for runoffs in down-ballot races can drop precipitously—for example, just 160 people voted in a June runoff for a school board seat after 893 voted in a May three-person race. “The numbers drop so, so low for those runoffs,” Commissioner Carol Myers said. “This would allow more people to be involved in the decision-making process.”
Commissioner Dexter Fisher, who voted against the resolution, said the public has not been consulted, a cost analysis hasn’t been done, and ranked choice voting could confuse the public. “We need a deep dive into this and really find out what the community thinks,” he said.
That’s exactly what the resolution would accomplish, Girtz said in casting the tie-breaking vote. “This is an opportunity for us to do that next level of exploration,” he said.
Link, Myers and commissioners Jesse Houle, Patrick Davenport and Ovita Thornton supported the resolution (despite Thornton’s previous statement that she would no longer support any resolutions). Fisher was joined by commissioners Tiffany Taylor, Allison Wright, John Culpepper and Mike Hamby in opposition.
Houle cited the cost of runoff elections as a reason to support ranked choice voting: ACC has spent $537,000 on runoffs since 2020, according to a memo from the manager’s office. “I think there are better ways we could spend half a million dollars,” they said.
Houle also noted that Georgia has already instituted ranked choice voting for overseas and military voters, because of the tight timeframes for sending out and returning those ballots by mail.
Several Athens residents have been pushing the mayor and commission for the resolution in recent months. However, ranked choice voting faces an uphill battle under the Gold Dome. During the last legislative session, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones introduced a bill to ban it, and House Speaker Jon Burns told reporters at a recent gathering of lawmakers at UGA that there is little appetite among Republicans for any major changes to elections next year.
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