The Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration met on Friday to certify the Nov. 5 election results, adding four voters to the final presidential tally, all four of whom voted for Democrat Kamala Harris.
The addition didn’t change the results, of course, with Republican Donald Trump getting a rounded 67.32 percent of the vote in the county, rather than 67.35 percent, and Harris getting 31.50 percent before and after the addition of the four votes.
Those figure underscore the peculiar placement of the two candidates in the county’s tallies.
Trump is the Republican candidate with the smallest percentage of the votes in the county after the final tallies, trailing top Republican vote getter Sheriff James Hale by 12.73 percent, and Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, the only other candidate for a federal office on the ballot, by 5.07 percent.
Harris, in contrast, was the top Democratic candidate in Nov. 5 voting in Oconee County, topping Alexandra “Lexy” Doherty’s 27.61 percent in the contest with Collins for U.S. Representative and Oconee County Board of Education Post 5 Democratic candidate Katie Green’s 27.35 percent.
An analysis of the votes for president shows that Trump won in all eight precincts in the county, but his percent ranged from a low of 60.55 in City Hall Precinct to a high of 76.71 in Dark Corner, historically the most conservative of the county’s precincts.
While Trump’s winning percent of 67.32 is 1.38 percentage points higher than in 2020, that 1.38 percentage points gain was below the 1.49 percentage point gain statewide and considerably below the 2.30 percent point gain in neighboring Clarke County.
Certification Meeting
The meeting of the Board of Elections and Registration on Friday consisted of two parts.
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| Stone And Gregg, Reading Results Aloud 11/8/2024 |
The Board met for just under a half hour starting at 3 p.m. to do a precertification review of the vote figures and of the election procedures.
After a two-hour recess to wait for any last minute votes from overseas ballots, the Board met for a little less than 10 minutes to review the final figures and certify the results.
Overseas ballots that arrived by 5 p.m. on Friday had to be considered valid by federal law. One arrived on Nov. 8 before the first meeting, but none arrived after that point.
Jennifer Stone, Assistant Director of Elections and Registration, said one of the four added ballots had been cast provisionally because the voter did not have an identification. The person came in on Friday with that needed document, and the ballot was counted, she said.
Sharon Gregg, Director of Elections and Registration, told the Board that the county’s turnout rate of 86.14 percent was the highest in the state.
Much of the discussion at the meeting of the Board of Elections and Registration on Friday focused on write-in votes, and Gregg read out at the second of the two meetings the tallies for each of the official write-in candidates for president, that is, those that had been registered.
In the end, only 1.18 percent of the voters, or 323, selected neither Trump nor Harris, with Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver getting 164, and Green Party Candidate Jill Stein getting 79.
“We've always had a good staff that has integrity,” Board Chair Jay Hanley said at the end of the first part of the meeting. “And so I thank y'all for what y'all do, because I know, especially the last several years, it's been quite difficult. And that's all I'll say about that.”
Analysis Of Presidential Votes
Trump ran weakest in the two Oconee County precincts of City Hall, which includes Watkinsville and the area to the east of the city, and Civic Center, the county’s largest precinct that includes the area around and north of the Civic Center.
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| Oconee Presidential Vote By Precinct (Click To Enlarge) |
Also just below average was Marswood Hall, which, with Civic Center and City Hall, form the central urban and commercial core of the county.
The county merged four precincts since the 2020 election, making comparisons difficult, but City Hall, and East Oconee and Civic Center, which now are Civic Center, were the precincts in 2020 that gave Trump the lowest level of support.
In Oconee County as a whole, Trump increased his percentage from 65.94 in 2020 to 67.32 in 2024, or an gain of 1.38 points. Harris's 31.50 percent was just below Joe Biden's 32.43 percent, or a loss of 0.93 points.
In Clarke County, Trump went from 28.14 percent in 2020 to 30.35 percent in 2024, or a gain of 2.21 points. In the state, the change was from 49.26 percent in 2020 to 50.75 percent in 2024, or an increase of 1.49 points.
In all three of Trump’s elections, he has run behind other Republican candidates on the ballot in Oconee County.
In 2020, Trump’s 65.94 percent vote percentage was behind the 71.00 percent that then U.S. Rep. Jody Hice received. In 2016, Hice ran unopposed, but Trump’s 67.53 percent vote was behind the 73.03 percent vote U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson received.
Analysis of Congressional Votes
Based on unofficial results, Collins, in his second race for the 10th District Congressional seat, did just slightly less well than he did in his first race two years ago.
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| Map 10th Congressional District |
In Oconee County, his 72.39 percent in 2024 compares with 72.70 percent in 2022, but in the 18-county district as a whole he dropped from 64.53 percent in 2022 to 63.05.
Collins lost–or Doherty won–that small part of the 10th District in Gwinnett County, Clarke County, Taliafarro County, Hancock County, and the parts of Henry County in the District.
Doherty’s 36.95 percent compares with the 35.47 percent that Tabitha Johnson-Green received in 2022 against Collins and the 37.69 Johnson-Green received against Hice in 2020.
Doherty is from Athens-Clarke County, while Johnson-Green was from Washington County.
State Legislative Races
In Oconee County, Republican Sen. Bill Cowsert received 73.81 percent of the vote on Nov. 5, based on the official results certified on Friday. Democrat Gareth Fenley received 26.19 percent.
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| Voting On Certification 11/8/2024 With Results In Table |
Cowsert had received a nearly identical percent against Andrew Ferguson in 2022, or 73.18 percent.
Across the whole district, Cowsert received 63.67 percent of the vote on Nov. 5 of this year, and 64.02 two years ago.
Houston Gaines, who represents the Marswood Hall and Bogart precincts of Oconee County, received 73.42 percent of the vote in those two precincts on Tuesday, based on the official results certified on Friday. Andrew Ferguson, his Democratic challenger, received 26.58 percent.
In 2022, Gaines had received 74.48 percent of the vote in the county to 25.52 for Democrat Mokah Jasmine Johnson.
Across the whole 120th District, consisting of parts of Barrow, Clarke, and Jackson counties as well as the Marswood Hall and Bogart precincts in Oconee, Gaines received 61.30 of the vote on Tuesday versus 61.17 percent two years ago.
Marcus Wiedower, who represents the remaining six precincts in the 121st Georgia House District, received 74.00 percent of the Oconee County vote in the Nov. 5 balloting to 26.00 for Democrat Eric Gisler.
Two years ago, Wiedower received 73.77 percent of the vote in Oconee County, with Democrat Jeff Auerbach receiving 26.23 percent.
The 121st House District consists only of the six precincts in Oconee County and parts of Clarke County, and in 2024, Wiedower received 61.13 percent of the vote in the two counties combined. In 2022, that figure had been 60.04.
Gerrymandered Clarke
Neither Gaines nor Wiedower carry the parts of heavily Democratic Clarke County that are in their Districts.
In the Nov. 5 election, Gaines received 45.48 percent of the vote in that part of Clarke County in his district to Ferguson’s 54.5 percent of the vote.
Wiedower received only 35.28 percent of the vote in Clarke County, while Gisler received 64.72 percent of the vote.
Clarke County, which gave Trump only 30.35 percent of its vote last week and 68.63 percent to Harris, is carved up into four state House legislative districts to dilute the impact of the county in the legislature.
Democrat Spencer Frye’s 122 House District is entirely in Clarke County, and he had no opposition in the Nov. 5 election.
In the 124th House District, which also includes parts of Clarke County, Trey Rhodes received only 33.75 percent of the vote last week, compared with 66.25 percent for challenger Democrat Melanie Miller.
Rhodes won in the district as a whole with 65.74 percent of the vote.
Bryant Interview
On Nov. 11 of last year, WGAU radio personality Tim Bryant interviewed both Gaines and Wiedower and asked them about the gerrymandering.
“If I’m a Democrat in a town where voters vote reliably, 65 percent of the time, for Democratic candidates,” Bryant said. “If I’m in that town, and I look up and I see my legislative delegation containing five Republicans and only one Democrat, I’m screaming bloody murder about that.”
Clarke County also is split between Senate District 46 and Senate District 47, with Republican Cowsert in the 46th and Frank Ginn, also a Republican, in the 47th Senate District. Neither Cowsert nor Ginn carried Clarke County in last week's voting.
“Conversely, as a Republican, I would applaud the folks that are able to make that happen,” Bryant continued. “The question is, how to you sustain that? I mean, how does that pass muster?”
“Well, you know, several points here,” Gaines responded. “One, if you look at Marcus and myself, since we’re the two here in the studio, but other Republicans in our delegation, we have a lot of folks who may normally vote Democrat that support us.”
“And so we have, we do have folks that are supporting us on both sides of the aisle,” he said. “I think we’re both proud of that.”
Wiedower didn’t respond, but Gaines went on to say that the politically gerrymandered districts have not been found to violate the federal Civil Rights Act.
Political gerrymandering has not been ruled illegal.
Video
The video below is of the entire Nov. 8, 2024, meeting of the Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration.
Gregg begins reading the election results prior to the vote on final certification at 27:41 in the video.
2 comments:
While it doesn't change the results, my simple math says there was about a 1,200 vote “defection” from Trump to Harris. 1200 = Trump voters < Collins voters. That equates to about 4.3% of the total vote for POTUS.
Harold,
Trump received 18,424 votes, and Collins received 19,640, or a difference of 1,216. Harris received 8,620 votes and Doherty received 7,489, or a difference of 1,131. In the presidential balloting, 27,367 votes were cast, including the 22 write-in votes. In the Collins/Doherty race, 27,129 votes were cast, or a difference of 238. So those 238 have to be allocated somewhere. So what the 1,216 voters who cast a ballot for Collins but not for Trump did isn't clear, but that there were that many of them is a fact.
Lee
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