A Postmortem On T-SPLOST

Read the column here.

In addition to the one-sidedness of the votes noted in my column proper, consider what follows.

The voting was in the Northeast Georgia District was amazingly lopsided. See just how much so for yourselves:

Barrow 29.24% yes 70.76% no

Clarke 51.72% yes 48.28% no

Elbert 42.45% yes 57.55% no

Greene 41.06% yes 58.94% no

Jackson 25.60% yes 74.40% no

Jasper 35.62% yes 64.38% no

Madison 38.01% yes 61.99% no

Morgan 31.76% yes 68.24% no

Newton 36.47% yes 63.53% no

Oconee 34.97% yes 65.03% no

Oglethorpe 36.00% yes 64.00% no

Walton 26.92% yes 73.08% no

Total 35.30% yes 64.70% no

See the Northeast Georgia District results here:

http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/GA/40378/94691/en/md.html?cid=91700

See the Northeast Georgia District results by county here:

http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/GA/40378/94691/en/md_data.html?c...

Also, as mentioned in the column, treating the dozen referenda as a collective whole, the statewide story was just the same: 622,594 votes in favor of the various referenda versus 982,815 votes against, or 38.78% yes and 61.12% no.

See the statewide results here:

http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/GA/40378/94674/en/summary.html

And here is another thing: the T-SPLOST referenda were timed specifically to result in low turnouts. So, the T-SPLOST referenda, through which Georgians wetr to decide the fate of a decade-long $18 BILLION tax plan, were scheduled for July, rather than to coincide with the presidential preference primary held a few months earlier in the year or the general election to be held a few months later. The politicians learned long ago to schedule these “optional” sales tax votes so as to guarantee most voters will not show up at the polls. The statewide turnout was measly a 31.28 percent; in the Northeast Georgia District, the similarly low turnouts by county were marginally higher:

Barrow 24.18%

Clarke 23.61%

Elbert 43.57%

Greene 42.26%

Jackson 38.87%

Jasper 48.29%

Madison 42.50%

Morgan 39.17%

Newton 30.92%

Oconee 45.68%

Oglethorpe 33.09%

Walton 33.56%

See turnouts by county here (just click on the map):

http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/GA/40378/94761/en/vt.html

Note that the number of “no” votes in just the Atlanta Regional District (418,423) was TWO-THIRDS (67.21% to be precise) of the total number of “yes” votes statewide (622,594).

Also, note that the number of “no” votes in the just Atlanta Regional District (again, 418,423), was MORE THAN TWICE THE TOTAL NUMBER OF VOTES, both for and against, the three referenda in the districts in which it passed (Central Savannah River Area District [91,916] + River Valley District [55,454] + Heart of Georgia Altamaha District [55,433] = 202,803).

All of my vote totals were taken from the Secretary of State’s web site as of mid-morning on Thursday, at which time only a couple of counties still had incomplete results.

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