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Atlantans picked Andre Dickens as their next mayor in the runoff election that finished Tuesday. But relatively few Atlantans did the picking.
Second-place finisher Felicia Moore did well in parts of the north side of Atlanta, but Dickens flipped much of the east side electorate that voted for Moore in the first round of voting.
Voter turnout is usually low for city elections.
About 368,000 Atlantans have voted within the last eight or nine years. The state calls those folks “active” voters. And about 78,000 of them showed up. That’s about 21% voter turnout, as official statistics go.
Looked at in other ways, the turnout rate would be lower because the pool of people who could vote is bigger than 368,000.
Atlanta’s voting age population was roughly 413,000 as of 2020, according to the Atlanta Regional Commission, and the vast majority of them are registered to vote. Indeed, technically, some 422,000 people are on the voting rolls, even if they haven’t voted here in years. Some of them have moved away or died and just haven’t been deleted from the registry yet.
But no matter how it’s calculated, it’s clear that not many people are jumping in the voting pool.
I was happy to vote for Andre Dickens before the runoff, and in the runoff. In fact, he was my candidate as soon as he announced. I believe he is the best person for the job.
I never saw a single yard sign for him, but plenty for Moore in our near-by neighborhood.
Dickens was elected by people who like and want to continue the current policies. They are good with crime and voted to keep the lawlessness and our city dangerous. I understand why law breakers and criminals support Dickens, but you would think law abiding black people would vote against continuing this lawlessness since all statistics show they suffer more from crime than white communities. If you do what you always do, you will get what you always got. Shame on them.