Georgia Rhythm

How could the state that managed to successfully stage the 1996 Olympics and secretly smuggle Muhammad Ali into Atlanta to light the Olympic flame screw up a primary election?

Reports of closed polling places, voting machines either broken or missing, and lines of people waiting to vote that were interminable both in length and duration plagued the Georgia primary to the point where it was obvious that nothing in the Peach State is peachy keen.  After all the dust settles (note tense), it won't (again, note tense) matter who won what.  (Although, noted 2017 U.S. House also-ran Jon Ossoff won the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, and a right-wing conspiracy theorist may end up winning a U.S. House nomination on the Republican side).

Top Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams has long complained about irregularity in access to voting in her state, much of it based on racism and voter suppression against blacks but also based on a lax, incompetent, disorganized approach to running elections - primary or general - and making them free and fair.  The increased reliance on mail-in balloting due to COVID-19 didn't help matters any either.  This fracas gave Abrams a see-I-told-you-so moment, and while it won't necessarily get her the 2020 vice presidential nomination, it does highlight how poorly run elections are not just in Georgia but in Wisconsin and several other states.  And that's a concern going into the November general election.

One thing we did learn about the Georgia primary: The Democrats have their work cut out for them in trying to win a state they haven't won since 1992.  Joe Biden and Donald Trump won their respective presidential primaries all right, but more Republican primary voters case a ballot for Trump than Democratic voters who cast a ballot for Biden.  And with so much political as well as racial division in Georgia - maybe more so than the country at large - are there even any independents there any more?