The 2024 election will take place on November 5. Early voting starts on October 15.
In this article, APN’s editor will break down candidates of interest to Athens voters, providing information and analysis to help you decide who to vote for.
Before examining this guide, you may wish to review your sample ballot at www.mvp.sos.ga.gov so you know which candidates you have the option to vote for.
Table of Contents
President of the United States
US House of Representatives, District 10
State Senate, District 46
State Senate, District 47
State House, District 120
State House, District 121
State House, District 124
District Attorney, Western Circuit
Uncontested races
Constitutional Amendment #1
Constitutional Amendment #2
Statewide Referendum A
President of the United States
Jill Stein (G – bottom left), Chase Oliver (L – bottom right)
You’ve gotta hand it to Donald Trump – he’s persistent.
After losing the popular vote in 2016 and the entire election in 2020, after being impeached not once but twice, after being convicted of felony charges involving the falsification of business records, after being found liable for sexual abuse and after sending a mob of violent extremists to force their way into the US capitol in an attempt to overthrow American democracy, Donald Trump still believes he can convince a majority of Americans to put him back in White House.
But he won’t need quite so many. Trump can regain power through the electoral college with a minority of voters, as long as they’re concentrated a handful of battleground states. As one of these states, Georgia may well determine the fate of the entire country.
Let’s examine some of the major issues in this election:
Vote for Donald Trump if you’d like to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, if you want to ban abortion nationwide, if you like what you’ve heard about Project 2025 or if you want to end this country’s experiment with democracy.
Vote for Kamala Harris if you’d like to reinstate the protections of Roe v Wade, continue the defense of Ukraine or preserve American democracy.
Vote third party if you dislike both major candidates equally and aren’t interested in helping the country decide between them.
Be advised that there are a couple candidates not listed above that may appear on some mail-in ballots. Cornel West (I) and Claudia De la Cruz (PSL) gathered enough petition signatures to be included, but they were disqualified by a judge late in the process and votes for them will not count in Georgia.
US House of Representatives, District 10
Mike Collins is a MAGA Republican who lives in Jackson, Georgia and owns a trucking company. Collins wants to cut federal spending, cut corporate taxes, fight the “immigration invasion” and end birthright citizenship. He has falsely claimed that the 2020 election was stolen and he wants to make it more difficult to vote absentee. He also really likes assault weapons, despite the harm they’ve caused to the residents of his district.
Lexy Doherty is a progressive Democrat from Athens who wants to help rural areas through small business development, education, job training and by “investment in innovative energy solutions.” She supports voting rights and would work to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. She also supports bodily autonomy for women and would work to codify the protections of Roe v Wade into law.
Vote for Mike Collins if you’re a MAGA Republican or if cutting taxes is the main issue you care about.
Vote for Lexy Doherty if you support voting rights or rural economic development, if you’d like to reinstate the protections of Roe v Wade or if you’re anyone but a MAGA Republican or single-issue anti-tax voter.
State Senate, District 46
Bill Cowsert has been a Georgia Senator since 2007 and has been the majority leader for much of that time. This means he is extremely powerful and will be almost impossible to defeat, if for no other reason than he got to pick his voters in the last round of redistricting. Cowsert will be able to greatly outspend his opponent this year, Gareth Fenley, a professional social worker and the founder of Seven Points, LLC, which helps students prepare for exams.
Cowsert has voted to restrict abortion rights, to make voting absentee more difficult, to limit investigation into allegations of sexual harassment, to ban the teaching of “divisive concepts” in schools, to allow guns to be carried without a permit, to mandate cash bail for some offenses, to criminalize some forms of protest and to support education vouchers potentially at the expense of public schools. He has also voted against expanding Medicaid, preventing this legislation from advancing out of committee.
Vote for Bill Cowsert if you want the candidate with the most experience or if you appreciate the many bills he’s passed. He’s definitely your candidate if you approve of the right-wing positions he’s taken on issues like guns, abortion and denying health insurance for his constituents.
Vote for Gareth Fenley if you want to go in more progressive direction and if you don’t mind voting for the candidate with less experience.
State Senate, District 47
Frank Ginn has been a Georgia Senator since 2011. While not quite as well-resourced or powerful as Bill Cowsert, he will surely cruise to another victory this year. District 47 has been deep red for a long time, but with redistricting it’s actually lost some Republican voters to District 46 to help defend Cowsert’s seat. That means it could end up swinging Democratic at some point this decade, but probably not this year.
Ginn has voted for all the same Republican legislation that Cowsert has supported above. In addition to all of that, he also voted against hate crimes legislation, he voted against ending the citizens’ arrest (even after Ahmaud Arbery’s murder) and he voted in favor of allowing guns on college campuses. His name has also been tarnished a bit in recent years due to his involvement in a scandal involving steel beams.
Ginn’s opponent is Conolus Scott, Jr., a plumber, former supervisor at Westinghouse and coordinator of Ministry-to-Men, an organization that serves C.M.E. churches. Scott supports voting rights, expanding Medicaid, promoting access to healthy food by eliminating “food deserts” and also the right to affordable housing for all people.
Vote for Frank Ginn if you prefer the farthest-right candidate with most political and legislative experience, and you don’t mind the occasional ethics scandal.
Vote for Conolus Scott if you want to go in a new direction by electing more ethical leadership and if you don’t mind voting for the candidate with less legislative experience.
State House, District 120
Houston Gaines has been a member of the Georgia House of Representatives since 2019 and is considered a rising star within the party. He is an excellent fundraiser and he’ll have hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend with more easily available if he feels threatened. His challenger, Andrew Ferguson, had raised only $4,816 by the end of July.
Judging by Gaines’ campaign rhetoric, he is a die-hard MAGA extremist and a staunch defender of US gun culture. He says he wants to deport the “violent criminal illegal aliens” and he wants to shrink the size of government. The truth is that he’s a bit more moderate than he wants us to believe and he would probably feel more comfortable in Mitt Romney’s Republican party than in Donald Trump’s.
Nevertheless, Gaines is committed to his persona and his voting record reflects that. He voted to ban abortion, to allow concealed weapons to be carried without a permit and to make voting absentee more difficult. He voted to keep people behind bars by mandating cash bail in some cases. He voted to criminalize some forms of peaceful protest and to ban gender-affirming treatment for LGBTQ youth. On the other hand, Gaines has sponsored some legislation that Democrats will appreciate, such as allowing for the expungement of more criminal records to remove what would otherwise be a lifetime barrier to employment for some people.
Vote for Houston Gaines if you appreciate the conservative legislation he has supported or if you want to keep a Republican majority in the state house.
Vote for Andrew Ferguson if you want to go in more progressive direction and if you don’t mind voting for the candidate with less experience.
State House, District 121
Similar to Gaines, Marcus Wiedower has also been a member of the Georgia House of Representatives since 2019. While he is not quite the fundraising powerhouse that Gaines is, he’ll still have hundreds of thousands of dollars more than his opponent, Eric Gisler, who got into the race late when the Democrat who won the primary dropped out suddenly.
Wiedower votes along party lines, so he has supported all the same Republican legislation that Gaines has. For example, he’s voted to ban abortion, to allow concealed weapons to be carried without a permit and to make voting absentee more difficult.
Gisler owns The Olive Basket, works at an insurance tech startup and is the co-chair of the Oconee County Democratic Party. He wants to expand Medicaid, prevent gerrymandering through an independent redistricting commissson, fully fund public schools and enshrine the protections of Roe v Wade in the Georgia Constitution.
Vote for Marcus Wiedower if you want to keep a reliable Republican voice in the state house.
Vote for Eric Gisler if you want to go in more progressive direction and if you don’t mind voting for the candidate with less experience.
State House, District 124
Trey Rhodes is a Republican from Greensboro who has served in the Georgia House of Representatives since 2015. He currently works in insurance, previously as a financial planner. Like Wiedower and Gaines, he votes with his party at virtually every opportunity.
His opponent this year is Melanie Miller, who is the first Black woman to run for the seat as reported by the Red & Black. Her platform includes restoring reproductive freedom, keeping kids safe from gun violence and expanding access to mental health services.
Vote for Trey Rhodes if you want to keep a reliable Republican voice in the state house.
Vote for Melanie Miller if you want to go in more progressive direction and if you don’t mind voting for the candidate with less experience.
District Attorney, Western Circuit
Deborah Gonzalez was elected District Attorney in 2020, making history as the first woman elected DA in the Western Circuit and the first Puerto Rican woman elected DA across the whole country. She ran on a platform of progressive change and transparency, promising not to prosecute low-level cannabis offenses, that she would end the use of cash bail for non-violent offenses and that she would not prosecute juveniles as adults, except when legally required.
Since then, things haven’t worked out as supporters have hoped.
She has continued to prosecute low-level cannabis charges in some cases, her office has continued to advocate for cash bail and she has continued to prosecute juveniles as adults. While she has made some efforts to improve transparency by creating a public data portal, that portal mostly contains data about her predecessor’s office and has not been updated since early 2022.
Gonzalez took office in the middle of a global pandemic and a judicial emergency that closed courtrooms around the state for a year or more. That meant she inherited a massive backlog of cases that put an immense strain on her office. Since she had no prosecutorial experience in 2020, Gonzalez ran under the assumption that she could operate primarily as a manager and that she would not need to actually prosecute any cases herself. In the face of extreme staffing challenges and widespread dysfunction in her office, she was ordered by a judge into the courtroom despite her lack of experience.
The upside to all of this for Gonzalez is that she now has the prosecutorial experience she was missing back in 2020. Yet, she still has significantly less experience than her challenger, Kalki Yalamanchili, who worked as an assistant district attorney under Ken Mauldin for five years. Before that, he worked as a prosecutor in the Cobb County Solicitor General’s office. Currently, Yalamanchili is a defense attorney with his own private practice.
Yalamanchili promises to end the chaos that has plagued Gonzalez’s first term by starting an in-house training program (he teaches criminal litigation at the University of Georgia) and by improving the office’s reputation so that it can attract more experienced prosecutors. He promises to put a priority on victim’s rights, which he says has been lacking in Gonzalez’s office, and to “hold those who commit heinous crimes accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
Gonzalez reports obtaining convictions in 53% of trial cases this year, a rate which Yalamanchili calls “abysmal.” Gonzalez’s attorneys have often made unforced errors in the courtroom, resulting in failed convictions and mistrials.
Another point of note is that Gonzalez has promised not to prosecute women who get abortions, whereas Yalamanchili has declined to make such a promise.
While Yalamanchili is running as an independent, he has a Republican voting record. He is being supported by the conservative group Athens Classic and his campaign is run by a firm created by Jordan Chinouth, a Republican political operative and former aide to Paul Broun, Kelly Loeffler and other Republican politicians.
APN did an interview with both candidates which you can watch here.
Vote for Deborah Gonzalez if you want to keep a progressive Democrat in this office and you aren’t overly concerned about her failure to adequately train her attorneys, her poor conviction rate, her Marsy’s Law violations or her failure to achieve most of her campaign promises from 2020.
Vote for Kalki Yalamanchili if you want a more experienced hand to guide the District Attorney’s office through its current turbulent period and you don’t necessarily care to have a Democrat in the seat.
Uncontested Races
State House District 122, ACC Clerk of Courts, ACC Sheriff, ACC Tax Commissioner and ACC Coroner are all uncontested in this election.
If you’re wondering why there’s no race for Public Service Commission, it’s because of a discrimination lawsuit still making it’s way through the court system. The PSC elections this year have been cancelled, leaving the Republicans in charge.
Constitutional Amendment #1
“Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to authorize the General Assembly to provide by general law for a state-wide homestead exemption that serves to limit increases in the assessed value of homesteads, but which any county, consolidated government, municipality, or local school system may opt out of upon the completion of certain procedures?”
If you’re a homeowner who has been faced with dramatically-rising property tax assessments seemingly every year, know that you’re not alone.
State legislators are faced with the same tax bills on the homes they own. This year, they got tired of it and passed the “Save Our Homes” Act. Championed by Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones (R), this piece of legislation would amend the Georgia Constitution to cap increases in home values to the rate of inflation every year for the purpose of calculating property taxes. So instead of a 7% or 8% increase in property taxes every year like we’ve had lately, we’d be looking at no more than 3% or so in most years (unless the school district opts out, see below).
This cap will only be in effect for owner-occupied properties, meaning that it doesn’t protect landlords, tenants or businesses.
Even if approved by voters, local governments and school districts can opt out of the home valuation cap if they so choose. However, Mayor Kelly Girtz has indicated his support (or at least, his acceptance) of the change, so it seems likely that the Athens-Clarke County Unified Government will not be opting out (although the Clarke County School District might).
This proposal would erode the tax base for local governments if they don’t opt out. Therefore, the drafters of the measure decided to give cities a way to make up this lost revenue by allowing an additional 1% sales tax called FLOST (a Flexible Local Option Sales Tax). If this amendment is approved in November, Athens voters would likely be headed back to the polls in early 2025 for a local election to approve or disapprove of the new sales tax.
UPDATE (10/15/24): The amendment is opposed by the Tax Foundation because they feel it would be a barrier for first time homebuyers.
UPDATE (10/20/24): Board of Education member Tim Denson tells APN that it is quite possible the Clarke County Board of Education will not be opting out of the valuation cap. In this case, a yes vote would slowly defund public education in Athens. However, Denson does not speak for the Board of Education, which has not even discussed this matter as a body and has not yet come to a decision.
Vote YES if you are a homeowner tired of paying large property tax increases every year and if you want to push some of the tax burden on to landlords, businesses, consumers and to a lesser extent, tenants.
Vote NO if you are a renter, a landlord, a consumer or a business owner who doesn’t want to pay more and who doesn’t mind seeing low and moderate-income homeowners struggling under large yearly tax increases, or if you are concerned about the Tax Foundation’s opinion that this amendment would harm Georgia’s housing market. You should also vote against this amendment if you want to make sure public education is fully funded in Athens and across the state.
Constitutional Amendment #2
“Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to provide for the Georgia Tax Court to be vested with the judicial power of the state and to have venue, judges and jurisdiction concurrent with superior courts?”
Currently, the Georgia Tax Tribunal handles tax disputes involving the Georgia Department of Revenue. This constitutional amendment would replace the Georgia Tax Tribunal with a new court, located firmly in the judicial branch of government (unlike the tribunal which is in the executive branch).
Creating a new tax court having concurrent jurisdiction with superior courts would allow the Governor to appoint specialized tax judges who could handle tax cases more quickly.
Vote YES if you think making a new court system to handle tax cases makes sense.
Vote NO if you prefer to keep the Georgia Tax Tribunal and you don’t really care if people with tax disputes get a quick resolution to their complaints or not.
Statewide Referendum A
“Do you approve the Act that increases an exemption from property tax for all tangible personal property from $7,500.00 to $20,000.00?”
This measure would lower taxes on personal property in Georgia. Some examples of taxable personal property are business inventory, boats, private jets and large machines. This referendum has nothing to do with real estate.
Most of us don’t pay property tax on our personal items because everything held in our homes is already exempt from taxes. Therefore, this measure would not affect the taxes that the vast majority of people have to pay. However, it would reduce the tax burden on many small businesses.
This current tax exemption was passed by voters in 2002, when it was raised from $500. If adjusted for inflation, the $7,500 exemption from 2002 would be raised to $13,353 in 2024.
Many Democrats in the Georgia General Assembly opposed this bill, especially an earlier version that raised the exemption to $50,000, while all Republicans voted in favor of it. The final vote in the Georgia Senate was unanimous in favor.
Vote YES if you think businesses and the wealthy should pay less in taxes.
Vote NO if you would rather not lower taxes on businesses and the wealthy.
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4 thoughts on “2024 General Election Voter Guide”
A property tax is progressive, taxing big houses in rapidly appreciating neighborhoods more than smaller houses in less desirable neighborhoods. A 1 percent sales tax is regressive, costing rich and poor the same amount on purchases, hurting less wealthy households disproportionately.
Won’t a “No” vote on Constitutional Amentment 1 disproportionately advantage the wealthy whose property values rise faster than those in less desirable neighbirhoods? Won’t the less affluent and poor suffer disproportionately when local governments pass regressive 1 percent sales taxes to compensate for the lost property tax revenue? Local governments may find it politically difficult to opt out of the artificial limits imposed by Amendment 1 on appraised property values. Government revenues and services will be squeezed.
This is my interpretation of Amendment 1. The burden placed on low income neighborhoods by income tax increases is largely a result of suburbanization. It needs to be dealt with smart policies on a local level, not with carte blanche approval for counties to shift tax burden further unto the working class. I am particularly concerned with our school districts. This amendment could be weaponized to push privatization.
I am not sure that your statement “This constitutional amendment would replace the Georgia Tax Tribunal with a new court, located firmly in the judicial branch of government (unlike the tribunal which is in the executive branch).” is entirely accurate. The governor will still be appointing these judges so they will be executive branch appointees. Do we want these judges be elected rather than appointed by the governor? Does it matter?
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this, it helped me a lot for voting! I appreciate it. ☺️