Wednesday, January 17, 2001
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Wednesday, January 17, 2001 |
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Are Fayette's voting patterns changing? By SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE It will take up-to-date census figures to interpret, precinct by precinct, the results of last November's election based on factors like income level, race, gender and level of education. While the 2000 Census is now in the hands of the states, the volume of data it represents won't be available for several months. Right now it's anybody's guess why precincts went as they did, so here are some of the more thought-provoking totals revealed by a quick glance over the score sheet. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney beat the Al Gore/Joe Lieberman slate handily in Fayette County, 29,338 to 11,912. The Brown/Olivier Libertarian ticket garnered 773 votes, the Independent Buchanan/Foster took 163, and Ralph Nader received 259 as a write-in candidate. Other write-ins received the remaining four. Nearly all of Fayette's 36 precincts, of course, went overwhelmingly to the GOP, but there were two notable exceptions: precinct three, known as Europe and voting at Liberty Baptist Church at Ga. highways 314 and 279 in north Fayette 1,021 votes to Gore and only 412 to Bush; Precinct 23, Kenwood, voting at North Fayette Baptist Church only about a mile-and-a-half south, on Kenwood Road 339 votes went to the Democrats, 218 to the Republicans. The most heavily weighted Republican precincts, at least in presidential balloting, were number two, Brooks (Brooks United Methodist Church); 13, Starrs Mill (Whitewater Middle School); 22, Braelinn (Braelinn Elementary School in Peachtree City); and 27, Dogwood (Grace Evangelical Church on Flat Creek Trail in mid-county). While longtime Clerk of court Bud Ballard, an unrepentant Democrat, was turned out of office by Republican Sheila Studdard, it was not by a landslide. She won 21,734 to 18,231, but Ballard's support was most dramatic in precinct three, Europe: 1,043 to 333. This was not a "favorite son" vote, since Ballard's farm is in Woolsey, in southern Fayette. To no one's surprise, in Fayette County Republican Mack Mattingly handed Democrat Zell Miller one of his few defeats in the state in the contest for the U.S. Senate. Miller, as an incumbent appointed after the death of Republican Sen. Paul Coverdell, was expected to win the seat in the special election incorporated in the Nov. 7 ballot, and did. Here Mattingly won with a slight edge, 20,179 to 19,517. Again, it was voters in precinct three who handed Miller his most lopsided local endorsement, by a margin of 3-1. That renegade precinct was one of only two Fayette precincts that favored Democratic candidate Gail Notti over incumbent Republican Rep. Mac Collins the other was number 23. As expected, Collins swept the 3rd congressional District, decimating a candidate who did not respond to invitations to introduce herself in person or through news interviews. Collins' Fayette win was by 30,880 to Notti's 9,780. Details of the election in Fayette County are in the county Web site at http://www.admin.co.fayette.ga.us/election/electres.htm . Find state results at http://www.sos.state.ga.us/elections. Census data may shed light on who voted, and how, but meanwhile, everyone's a pundit. Or as the comedians say, go figure.
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