I voted for Warnock today, and wondered who you voted for? According to the Data Hub of the office of Georgia’s secretary of state, 349,359 people had cast ballots as of 7:00 a.m., November 29. There are four days of early voting left before the election which is on December 6. We went to the Boots Ward Recreation Center, Lost Mountain to cast our ballots. Not a long wait, especially if you are old, like us. Any one 75 or over gets to by-pass everyone else in line. We were in and out in about 10 minutes.

But the ballot was very odd. Normally you have to wade through a lot of names. Not this time. Only two names on the ballot. Walker, Hershel and Warnock, Rafael (Incumbent senator). It was an easy choice for us. But I’m afraid that is not the case with a lot of voters in the state. Georgia installed new voting machines this year, that includes an electronic vote, followed by a print out of your ballot. You then walk to another station to put your paper ballot into a machine (much like a shredder). That was it.

During the general election on November 3, 3.98 million votes were cast in the Warnock-Walker-Oliver race for senate. Using a Pareto chart, I showed that the 80% of the vote occurred in 20% of the counties (40 out of 159 counties) in Georgia.

Early Voting

Figure 1 displays two kinds of data. The bar graph shows the number of votes cast in the top 16 counties of the state. The table to the right repeats the same data. Four or five counties dominate the voting in the state. When I did an analysis of the November 3 election, the five counties with the most votes cast was (in order) Fulton, Cobb, Gwinnett, DeKalb and Cherokee. All of these are in the metro Atlanta area. Warnock won the first four by wide margins. Walker won Cherokee county. It’s quite likely that the margins will be similar. However, the determining factor that everyone is talking and writing about is getting out the vote. Walker did well in rural counties. Will rural voters show up in large numbers?

Warnock has been visible and approachable over the past week. Walker, according to reports in the Atlanta Journal is missing in action. According to one report, Warnock outpaces Walker in media ads during the run up to the runoff.

Walker has continued to hide from any attempt by reporters to ask questions about his positions on key issues facing the Senate. He refuses to meet with journalists for one-on-one interviews. Yet, even with negative ads put out by the Warnock team, voters are often not swayed from the their initial positions.

The key in this election is turnout, as well as how those who voted for Kemp, but not Walker choose to vote. Also, about 2% of the electorate voted for Independent candidate Chase Oliver. Will these voters choose to show up in the voting booth. Will they lean toward Warnock?

Yes, I voted for Senator Warnock. And I think he’s going to win.