Democrat Woodrow Wilson, who spent part of his youth in Augusta, Georgia and married Ellen Louise Axson, whom he met in Rome, Georgia, was elected President in a landslide victory on November 5, 1912.
Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to his unprecedented third term as President of the United States on November 5, 1940.
Richard M. Nixon was elected President of the United States by a plurality vote on November 5, 1968.
On November 5, 2002, Sonny Perdue was elected the first Republican Governor of Georgia since Reconstruction, beginning the modern era of Republican dominance of Georgia state politics.
Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections
A Chatham County judge dismissed a lawsuit by the Trump campaign and Georgia Republican Party over ballot procedures, according to the Savannah Morning News.
Chatham County Superior Court Judge James Bass has dismissed a lawsuit filed against the Chatham County Board of Elections by President Donald Trump’s campaign and the Georgia Republican Party.
On Wednesday, the petition was filed asking a judge to order the county to secure and account for ballots received after 7 p.m. on Election Day.
The petitioners mostly questioned the process of receiving absentee ballots and the storage of the ballots. Both Pumphrey and Carter said they could offer no proof that the absentee ballots were delivered after the 7 p.m. deadline.
Augusta Judicial Circuit District Attorney Natalie Paine (R) conceded her loss, according to the Augusta Chronicle.
District Attorney Natalie Paine has conceded the election to Jared Williams, who leads by 1,682 votes as totals are being finalized.
“The district attorney’s job is a tough one. I hope that we will come together to help Jared Williams as he begins his tenure as district attorney,” Paine said in a message to supporters.
Paine’s latest tally was 86,239 votes, or 49.52%, to Williams’ 87,921 votes, or 50.48%.
Georgia voters overwhelmingly passed two Constitutional Amendments and a statewide referendum on Tuesday. From the Capitol Beat News Service via the Dalton Daily Citizen News:
A constitutional change requiring that state fees and taxes collected for a specific purpose are spent as intended passed with 81.4% of the vote.
A second constitutional amendment prohibiting the state and local governments from using the legal doctrine of “sovereign immunity” to avoid citizen lawsuits won approval from 74.3% of the voters.
Georgia voters also authorized a tax exemption for property owned by charitable organizations for the purpose of building or repairing single-family homes. House Bill 344 was endorsed with 73% of the vote.
The General Assembly put Amendment 1 on the ballot in honor of the late state Rep. Jay Powell, R-Camilla, a longtime leader of the effort to ensure that fees collected for Georgia’s Hazardous Waste and Solid Waste Trust funds are spent cleaning up hazardous waste sites and tire dumps.
Gwinnett County voters approved the continuation of a one-cent Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax for Education (E-SPLOST), according to the Gwinnett Daily Post.
[V]oters opted to continue the E-SPLOST, which will support capital projects in Gwinnett and Buford schools, in a landslide with 76.56% of the votes counted, according to unofficial results.
The vote means the tax will be extended for five years, with the sunset date now set for June 2027. The tax is expected to raise an estimated $984.5 million over the five year period.
The breakdown of where the funding is expected to go is $957.09 million for GCPS and $27.4 million for Buford City Schools.
It’s currently unclear whether the Gwinnett County Transit Referendum passed, according to the Gwinnett Daily Post.
DeKalb County voters approved a fix to the defective county ethics law and Brookhaven voters rejected a repeal of Mayoral term limits, according to the Champion newspaper.
Voters cast ballots in favor of changing DeKalb County’s Board of Ethics, which has been defunct since August 2018 when a judge ruled that its members were unconstitutional since they were appointed by non-elected entities. Nearly 85 percent voted in favor to the ethics code revision and 15 percent voted against it.
With a favorable vote, the update would change the appointment process of members and add an administrator position that receives citizens complaints against officials.
City of Brookhaven Referendum- “Shall the section of the Act be approved which repeals the provision that limits the terms of the mayor of the City of Brookhaven to allow the voters of Brookhaven to choose the mayor of their choice?”
As of 11:30 p.m., votes cast show that 56.8 percent voted against changing the mayoral term limits. Forty-three percent voted yes to the change.
A majority “yes” vote would allow the mayor to seek an unlimited number of terms. Currently the city’s charter limits the mayor to two consecutive four-year terms.
A Putnam County referendum to help pay off debt for Putnam General Hospital failed by a 59% to 41% vote. The referendum would have allowed the Putnam County Commission to levy a 1-mill property tax for six years, raising up to $7.8 million dollars to retire debt.
Monroe County voters declined to support a Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax for Transportation (T-SPLOST), according to WGXA.
The margin on Tuesday night was slim with 7,314 (49%) YES and 7,518 (51%) NO.
[District 2 County Commissioner Eddie] Rowland believes voters said no because to them it’s just another tax, but he points out that a SPLOST is a sales tax and not a property tax. He says half of the tax would be paid by people traveling through the county on I-75.
Had it been approved, the penny tax was expected to generate about $17 million over five years beginning on April 1, 2021. Of that $17 million, $14.1 million would go to the county, $2.6 million would be distributed to the City of Forsyth and $305,000 would go to the City of Culloden, according to the county.
A regional TSPLOST was also rejected in Monroe County in 2012 and 2017, that included projects that would benefit all of Middle Georgia’s counties.
Lula voters approved two referendum questions on Sunday sales of alcohol, according to the Gainesville Times.
Voters cast their ballots in two referendums, one for sales by the drink at restaurants and one for package sales at retailers. While 59% of voters approved the sales by the drink, 60% approved package sales.
City Manager Dennis Bergin said the City Council will vote on the effective date of the rules at its November meeting.
Senoia City Council voted to move forward with an ordinance revision that would allow alcohol delivery, according to the Newnan Times-Herald.
The city ordinance is in response to state legislation allowing alcohol delivery that was approved this summer. The state’s alcohol beverage delivery laws allow restaurants with an on-premise consumption license, as well as retailers with package licenses, to deliver alcohol beverages, with current restrictions.
The beverages must be in sealed containers, and restaurants in Senoia’s city limits can only deliver alcohol to customers inside the city limits, said City Manager Harold Simmons. All deliveries must be made in accordance with state law and the regulations established by the Georgia Department of Revenue.
Under state law, restaurants can’t deliver liquor, even if they have a license to serve liquor. Only licensed liquor stores can deliver liquor, and under state law, stores can only deliver to customers within the city or county where their alcohol license is issued.
Restaurants that want to deliver alcohol will need to file a letter of intent with the city clerk, but no additional fee or license is required.
