Will Dade Surpass 2020’s Voter Turnout This November?

By LYDIA BERGLAR
News Editor

An oft-lamented topic in Dade County is low voter turnout. As the Sentinel reported after the May primary, Dade had 11,353 active registered voters, but only 2,799 people voted in the primary—a 24.65 percent turnout.

As of Oct. 8, Dade’s active registered voters had risen to 11,421 per the Georgia Secretary of State’s online Election Data Hub. Another 3,033 are inactive voters: those who haven’t voted or contacted the election office over the past two two-year election cycles.

Lowanna Vaughan (elections supervisor at the Dade County Board of Elections) recalled that registered voters also totaled about 11,000 four years ago. Like this year, the May and November 2020 elections featured both local candidates and the presidential race.

The elections office reported that 3,315 people voted in that primary, while the general election in November brought 7,479 voters to the polls. The office considers this a large turnout for Dade, even though it represents only about 68 percent of the registered voters.

As both Lynn Hartman and Karen Johnson noted in the Sept. 25 issue of the Sentinel, voters shape the major political issues in our nation while even just a handful of voters can have a major impact at the local level.

This year’s race of Jerry Henegar and Bob Woods for the county commissioner District Three seat came down to a difference of just 22 votes. Vaughan said, “In the county, it can come down to a small amount, and the city even more so because you don’t have to win by 50 percent plus one; you can win by just one vote.”

Why exactly do Dade residents forfeit their right to vote? We can only speculate and offer anecdotal evidence, but the elections office staff reported that they hear from people who don’t vote in primaries or only choose to vote in major elections (like the presidential elections).

The reason some do not vote in primaries could be that all of this year’s local candidates, aside from non-partisan judges, qualified as Republican. To vote on these candidates, one must choose a Republican ballot.

Vaughan explained that public records show which ballot you choose, and this is a sticking point for some people. However, primaries are very important because they decide who will be on the November ballot.

Additionally, the elections office routinely hears sentiments of mistrust about elections, but Vaughan cites the protocols that are in place to maintain election integrity: poll workers, poll volunteers, and Logic and Accuracy (L and A) testing of every piece of equipment. While unable to speak about Atlanta, the rest of the state, or the rest of the nation, her team is confident in the integrity of Dade’s elections.

Even though the office hears complaints about elections, they continue to have difficulty finding poll workers and volunteers. Although some people distrust the Dominion voting machines and L and A testing is open to the public, Vaughan said, “Nobody ever comes to watch the testing.”

Anecdotally, the Sentinel has also had conversations with some citizens who don’t think their vote makes an impact (particularly in the presidential election) and don’t feel informed enough to vote in local and state elections. Barriers to becoming better informed include the usual suspects: busy lives, a slight level of apathy about politics, and a general distaste for the messiness of politics.

One factor impacting the registered voter number in Dade is temporary residents, like Southeast Lineman Training Center (SLTC) and Covenant College students. The elections office reported that the majority of SLTC students become registered voters through the Department of Driver Services, but they are only in Dade for a few months. However, they stay on the voter rolls until they hit inactive status and are eventually purged from the rolls.

Covenant students can register to vote in Dade or by absentee ballot in the state they came from. Many of them are here for about four years, rather than four months, and the elections office noted that a number of them do vote in Dade.

Vaughan noted that purging voter rolls of inactive voters has received some pushback. However, many American voters understand that people who move away or die and must eventually be removed from the voter list, and the current process is a good way to do that.

On a different note, a question that came up among citizens this election cycle is: Why does Dade County have districts when commissioners handle matters from all across the county and voters vote for all districts? Vaughan explained that the district model is used so that not all commissioners come from one area, leaving the rest of the county feeling unrepresented.

Reminder: Early voting began this week, and it’s now less than three weeks until Nov. 5. How many voters will we send to the polls?