Dems and GOP Alike Happy to Be Done With McKinney
Jamie Gregorian
Vote analysis: GOP not key in McKinney loss
Ben Smith and David A. Milliron - Staff
Tuesday, October 15, 2002
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/epaper/editions/today/news_d3ba8bba84f53017001c.html
U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney believes it was Republicans who defeated
her in the August Democratic primary. But an analysis by The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution shows they weren't the decisive factor.
In fact, it wasn't even close.
Of the 68,612 voters who cast ballots for Democratic challenger Denise
Majette, no more than 3,118 of them were voters who can be clearly
identified as Republicans, based on their voting histories in state
primaries. Majette's margin of victory, in winning 58 percent of the
votes cast in the primary, was six times that amount.
The analysis suggests that most of the people in the 4th Congressional
District who cast ballots in the Democratic primary either had
histories of not voting often enough or of switching parties so often
that they could not be classified as either Democrats or Republicans.
While an individual's vote is secret, each time a voter casts a ballot
in a primary, poll workers record which party's ballot the voter
selects and that choice becomes public record. Political parties use
that information to build databases of likely voters.
Supporters of McKinney, a five-term congresswoman from DeKalb County,
have filed suit over the race she lost to Majette, a former state
court judge, in the Aug. 20 primary.
McKinney's backers claim Republicans ensured Majette's victory by
taking advantage of Georgia's open primaries to cross over and vote
for McKinney's opponent. They are asking a federal judge to reverse
the election's outcome by erasing those votes.
The crossover vote was, at most, a couple of percentage points higher
than normal based on the newspaper findings. Republican pollster and
strategist Whit Ayres said crossovers in party primaries typically run
between 1 and 2 percent. The GOP crossover in the McKinney-Majette
primary was 3 percent.
McKinney did not return a phone call seeking comment. Mike Raffauf,
the attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of five DeKalb County
voters, dismissed the findings.
"I don't have any faith in any analysis you or The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution would do," he told a reporter. "It's still a
violation under the Voting Rights Act."
The plaintiffs plan to hold a news conference at 11 a.m. today on the
steps of the DeKalb County Courthouse.
In the lawsuit, McKinney supporters claim 37,500 Republicans carried
out a "malicious crossover" into the Democratic primary to oust
McKinney. The lawsuit says the crossover voting violated the Voting
Rights Act by denying African-American voters the right to elect the
candidate of their choice. Black voters went for McKinney by a ratio
of more than 2-1.
Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 due to inconsistencies
of Southern states to enforce the 15th Amendment to the Constitution,
which has guaranteed the right to vote regardless of race since 1870.
Stanley Baum, former head of the DeKalb Republican Party, argues
McKinney's defeat was the result of a combination of circumstances.
"I don't think she lost because of the Republican crossover but
because of a lot of factors," said Baum. "There were many different
types of people who felt disenfranchised by her remarks and the
remarks of her father," longtime state Rep. Billy McKinney.
Congresswoman McKinney stirred controversy several months before the
primary when she suggested President Bush may have known about the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and failed to take action so friends and
family could reap wartime profits.
And the night before the primary election, state Rep. McKinney
publicly blamed his daughter's campaign problems on "J-E-W-S,"
spelling out the word on live television.
Baum, who is Jewish, said he cast an absentee ballot for Majette in
the primary because he couldn't stomach the thought of entering a
Democratic voting booth on Election Day. He said he believes the call
to arms by some Republican activists and conservative newspaper
columnists to oust McKinney was heard by many different types of
voters.
The newspaper analysis suggests some evidence that supports that view.
Along with thousands of switch-hitting voters, the primary drew 5,701
new voters and 4,694 people --- mostly dormant Democrats as identified
by their voting histories --- who hadn't voted in at least four years.
The resulting Majette victory came from a patchwork of voting groups:
independents, white Democrats and crossover Republicans. Joining them
were 18,000 black voters who made up one-fourth of Majette's total.
That estimate is based on Majette's vote totals in predominantly black
voting precincts.
Political experts generally believe McKinney's defeat was rooted in
her alienation of white Democrats. They say she failed to correct a
steady evaporation in recent years of support in the predominantly
white sections of DeKalb County, once bastions of Republicanism that
now lean Democratic.
University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock said
it was the erosion of McKinney's white Democratic support that made
Majette's candidacy possible.
Instead of focusing on repairing relations with potential white
supporters, he said, McKinney directed her efforts to bringing out as
many black voters as possible.
But a redrawing of congressional district lines had changed the mix of
McKinney's constituents, he said. It went from being two-thirds black
to a slight African-American majority.
"In the old district, as long as you were the black candidate, that
was enough," said Bullock. "You didn't have to worry about building
biracial coalitions. Some of [McKinney's] behavior suggested that she
was caught in a time warp."
The lawsuit accuses Majette of being a Republican Party plant, noting
that she voted in the 2000 Republican presidential primary for
conservative radio commentator Alan Keyes.
Majette, an African-American, has said she opted to vote for Keyes
because she wanted to cast a vote for a black man for president.
In a review of Majette's voting history, that was the only time she
recorded a Republican vote in the last 10 general and presidential
primaries.
She is not the only Democratic politician to have voted Republican. In
1996, DeKalb County Chief Executive Officer Vernon Jones and state
Rep. Doug Teper (D-Atlanta) crossed over to cast ballots in the
Republican presidential primary.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's analysis concentrated on the
116,410 DeKalb County voters who cast ballots in the 4th District
Democratic congressional primary Aug. 20.
Their voting histories were traced back to 1990. For a voter to be
considered a Democrat or a Republican, he or she had to have cast
ballots in at least four of seven state primaries and sided with one
party or the other 75 percent of the time.
In an effort to estimate a possible total of Republican leaning
voters, the Journal-Constitution used several scenarios. Among them
was adding the number of consistent Republican voters to those who
don't vote or routinely switch parties in Georgia primaries, but side
more often with the GOP in presidential primaries.
Not included in the study were 2,405 voters from the seven Gwinnett
County precincts included in the district. However, even adding the
2,145 votes Denise Majette collected in Gwinnett County --- on the
highly improbable assumption they are all Republican --- Majette still
prevails by 3,434 votes.
--- Staff writers David Milliron and Ben Smith
TheNIGHTCRAWLER
<dr_vm...@techieREMV.com> wrote:
>On 15 Oct 2002 09:19:50 -0700, greg...@my-deja.com (Jamie Gregorian) wrote:
>
>
>>In the lawsuit, McKinney supporters claim 37,500 Republicans carried
>>out a "malicious crossover" into the Democratic primary to oust
>>McKinney. The lawsuit says the crossover voting violated the Voting
>>Rights Act by denying African-American voters the right to elect the
>>candidate of their choice. Black voters went for McKinney by a ratio
>>of more than 2-1.
>
>How in the hell does this deny black voters the right to elect the candidate
>of their choice?
>
>What about white voters...don't they have the same right?
McKinney lost because she wasn't making life better for the majority
of the people she represented. Funny how things can be that simple,
eh?
America's supposed to work that way. Why are people shocked when it
does?
McKinney might want to be President, but when she can't prove to the
people that she represents that she's creating a better society on a
very basic local level, it's supposed to magically happen at a higher
level, representing a much larger portion of society. Well, not
happening.
Just like that. Any candidate making a real difference in local and
community life will attract notice. That's the result of leadership.
Put how you've improved society with the full weight of the people you
represent behind you on your resume.
I'll pump up Majette and see what she's capable of now. Did she get
there just to shut up McKinney, or is she going to lead? All these
tax dollars are going somewhere. Sooner or later people will look
more closely at what's happening with all that money.
TheNIGHTCRAWLER