The Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration has scheduled a called meeting for 5 p.m. on Tuesday (Aug. 19) to respond to the request from the Oconee County Board of Education to put renewal of the Education Local Option Sales Tax (ELOST) on the Nov. 5 ballot.
The current ELOST is set to expire at the end of 2027, or when it has generated $48.5 million in revenue.
The referendum, if approved by voters, would begin as soon as the current ELOST reaches that $48.5 million cap and continue the 1 percent tax for five years or until it reaches a cap of $86.8 million.
The Board of Education is expecting the current ELOST to reach its cap of $48.5 million by the end of 2026.
The ELOST referendum will be the only county issue on the ballot in November, which will contain the state-wide election for Districts 2 and 3 on the Public Service Commission.
Qualifying starts at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow (Monday) for mayor and two council seats in Watkinsville, two council seats in Bogart, mayor and all four council seats in Bishop, and three council seats in North High Shoals.
If more than one candidate qualifies, those cities also will hold elections for voters with their narrow jurisdictions.
If the turnout for the June 17 Party Primaries for the Public Service Commission (3.8 percent) and for the July 15 Democratic Primary runoff are any indication, turnout in November can be expected to be light.
Only 1,924 of the county’s then 30,516 active voters (6.3 percent) cast a ballot in the special election on March 16 of 2021 for the current ELOST when that was the only county issue on the ballot.
2021 ELOST Vote
The Board of Education put the current ELOST VI on the ballot a year early to begin its building program that included construction of the new Dove Creek Middle School and the new Instructional Support Center.
The Board sold bonds to finance that construction soon after the referendum passed, and the payment schedule on those bonds runs through 2033.
Voters overwhelmingly approved the March 2021 referendum, with 83.6 percent of the 1,924 voters who cast a ballot voting yes.
Voters strongly approved all five of the prior ELOST votes, with a high of 89.3 percent voting approval in March of 2002 for ELOST II.
Only two of the six ELOST votes have been on November ballots, and those produced approval votes of 70.2 percent in November of 2016 and 71.4 percent in November of 2011.
The Board relied heavily on communication with school families, teachers, and other employees in the 2021 campaign.
The system has built up a very robust social media program in recent years, and it is certain to use it for the ELOST VII referendum campaign.
Steven Colquitt, Director of Communications for Oconee County Schools, told the Board at its Aug. 4 meeting that the district has nearly 23,300 followers across Facebook, Instagram, and X.
PSC Vote Turnout
While the June and July votes in the Public Service Commission race were low by almost any standard, they involved a delayed race with a peculiar election process.
Oconee County is part of District 2 and currently is represented by Republic Tim Echols.
But the primary ballot in June for both parties listed candidates not only for District 2, which consists of 38 counties from eastern metropolitan Atlanta to the Savannah River and from Hart County in the north to Chatham County in the south, but also for District 3, which consists of Clayton, DeKalb, and Fulton counties.
Candidates must live in their District, but they run for office statewide.
Only Democratic candidates for District 3 appeared on the July 15 runoff ballot.
In the June Party Primaries 487 persons used a Democratic ballot (36.8 percent), and 835 used the Republican ballot (63.2 percent).
Oconee County had 32,553 Active voters and another 1,960 voters who were Inactive, for a total of 34,513 eligible votes.
All of the 34,513 excepting the 835 who cast a Republican ballot in June were eligible to vote in the Democratic Party primary since Georgia does not have registration by party.
Democratic Runoff Votes
Only 370 Oconee County voters cast a ballot in the July 15 runoff, but an analysis of those votes I conducted using the voting lists shows that the 370 included only 260 voters who had participated in the June 17 Democratic Party Primary.
Of the 487 June voters, 227 did not go back to vote in the runoff, but 110 voters who had not participated in the June 17 primary voted in the runoff.
As a result, the number of individual Democratic voters in the county who participated in that party’s primary and primary runoff was 597.
The Republican Party did not have a runoff, and 835 voters cast a ballot in the Republican Party Primary in June.
The Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration had not budgeted for the July runoff and asked for and received from the county $14,500 to cover the costs of the July runoff.
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