Thursday December 31, 2020
Lively participation in the Senate election
Georgia is heading for an election record
Two Senate runoff elections in Georgia will decide whether future US President Joe Biden can rule with the support of a parliamentary majority or not. People seem aware of that. Many eligible voters use early voting.
A few days before the Senate runoff elections in the US state of Georgia, a record turnout is emerging. More than 2.8 million eligible voters took advantage of the opportunity to cast their vote before the actual vote on January 5th, according to government data from New Year’s Eve. That is already significantly more votes than were cast in the Senate election in 2008. At that time, 2.1 million people had voted.
Democrats and Republicans are vying for two senatorial posts. The outcome decides whether the future President Joe Biden can rule with the support of a parliamentary majority, or whether he has to deal with a divided Congress, which could make it much more difficult for him to implement many projects or fill important cabinet positions.
The runoff is necessary because none of the candidates won the absolute majority in the November 3rd Congress election, which was held as part of the presidential election. So far, Republicans have held the posts with Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. If they can defend at least one of the two seats, the Republicans retain a majority in the Senate.
However, if the Democrats – Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossof – capture both seats, there will be a 50-50 stalemate. In the event of a tie vote in the chamber, it would then be up to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to use her voting rights to bring about a decision. The Democrats would effectively have an advantage in both chambers of Congress, because they already have a majority in the House of Representatives.
