By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
MARCH 22, 2019 | So it’s back to the drawing board for transit in Gwinnett. The tyranny of the minority—nine percent of the 543,000 people registered to vote in Gwinnett, defeated the proposal to bring modern transit to the county. The vote was 49,936 to 41,985, a difference of 7,951. Only 16.7 percent of those registered actually voted in the referendum.
What really hurts in this progressive county is that the vote sent a racial message to the world, for the race question, was surely tantamount, along with the hike in sales tax in defeating the question.
A tactical mistake looms big from this result. It’s happened before in Gwinnett. Officials have felt that having a vote on a single issue will focus on the essential question, and that for the most part, the “Yeas” will outnumber the “Nays” on such questions. It all depends on the voter turnout, and most of the time, putting only one issue before the voters has worked in the past.
Not in 1995. The Gwinnett School Board then asked for extension of a one cent E-SPLOST vote, with this the only question on the ballot. The Board was surprised when it failed by 329 votes out of the 36,413 people voting. But only 17.78 percent of those registered cast ballots. In the next General Election (1996), the School Board came back with the same question on the ballot, which carried the E-SPLOST with a 53-47 percent majority.
So currently, Gwinnett officials must work toward presenting a similar transit question again, since the time seems ripe for transit. But there are complications: the main one is if Gwinnett can get favorable conditions for bringing transit to the county. Chairman Charlotte Nash worked long and hard to get MARTA officials to agree that all monies raised by the sales tax would have to have local approval before anything could be started.
You wonder if such terms can be obtained again.
Yet at the same time, while Gwinnett needs a tie-in with MARTA, the same is true for MARTA: it needs to extend its services to Gwinnett to have more riders, to be of more service to Atlanta passengers. We figure there is a good chance the county could get a similar proposed contract with MARTA for a vote in the 2020 General Election, since MARTA needs Gwinnett as much as Gwinnett needs MARTA.
Let’s look at the last two general elections. In 2018, there were 525,568 persons registered, and 338,125 votes were cast, or 64.34 percent of those registered. Stacey Abrams won the governor’s race in Gwinnett with 178,097 votes, or 56.52 percent.
In 2016, there were 430,935 registered, with 332,149 votes cast in Gwinnett, or 77.08 percent. Hillary Clinton won the county with 161,153 votes, or 50.2 percent.
So, by 2020, there should be at least 550,000 people registered, and with it a presidential year, about three quarters of those, 412,500, will cast ballots.
Should the transit question be on the ballot, what would be the outcome? We’ll suggest again that when the turnout is large, Gwinnett will approve MARTA. Maybe that’s where the 62 percent comes in!
The 2020 elections are a long way off, and lots of activity must take place for another transit vote. Yet having that question on the 2020 ballot will give the best chance for passage, for we won’t have the tyranny of the minority to decide the question, but the majority of the people will be voting on it.
Remember Abe Lincoln: “Trust the people. Always trust the people.”
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Follow Us