Georgia should eliminate general election runoffs, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) said on Wednesday, a little over a week after Sen. Raphael Warnock won a runoff against GOP nominee Herschel Walker.
“We’re also one of the only states that always seems to have a runoff,” Raffensperger said in a statement. “I’m calling on the General Assembly to visit the topic of the General Election Runoff and consider reforms.”
Runoff elections are triggered when no candidate wins over 50% percent of the vote in the general election. The runoff race between the top two candidates happens four weeks later. The candidate who gets the most votes wins.
Louisiana is the only other state to hold general election runoffs.
Raffensperger pointed out the toll that administering runoffs takes on election workers over the four-week period, which includes Thanksgiving.
“No one wants to be dealing with politics in the middle of their family holiday,” he said. “It’s even tougher on the counties who had a difficult time completing all of their deadlines, an election audit and executing a runoff in a four-week time period.”
The time between the general election and a runoff contest was reduced from nine weeks to four weeks under a law signed last year by Gov. Brian Kemp (R).
Kemp has not weighed in on Raffensperger’s proposal.
Runoff elections have been controversial, with critics pointing to the segregationist origins of the policy that has been in place since the 1960s. Runoffs originally aimed to restrict the power of Black voters in elections.
The state’s GOP-led General Assembly is due to meet again in January.
Earlier this month, Warnock said he won the runoff despite voter suppression.
“Let me be clear: The fact that millions of Georgians endured hours in lines, and were willing to spend hours in line — lines that wrapped around buildings and went on for blocks, lines in the cold, lines in the rain — is most certainly not a sign voter suppression does not exist,” Warnock said.
Election organizers cited long lines and missing ballots, among other problems, while Republican state officials claimed the runoff was smooth.