Peach Tree Times

Republican candidate Devan Seabaugh substantially outperformed his expected performance to win a seat in the Georgia State House with 63% of the vote in a special election runoff.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia election law SB 202 went into effect on July 1 and most components of the new law had an immediate effect on two State House runoff elections occurring in July 2021.

One of those elections was the one Seabaugh won, with the newspaper reporting that Seabaugh, a Republican, handily defeated Democrat Priscilla Smith on July 13.

Seabaugh won 63% to Smith’s 37%. Almost 9,000 people voted in the House District 34 election.

Despite the fact that runoffs usually have fewer voters than regular elections, more voters showed up to July 13’s runoff election—nearly 2,000 more.

Election Transparency Initiative Chairman Ken Cuccinelli said the robust voter participation numbers showed that new voter law was not restrictive, but rather promising.

“This week’s Georgia special election was the first conducted with Georgia’s new voter law mostly in place,” he said. “Despite the Republican winning by a wide margin, Democrats made no claims, nor showed any evidence, of anything other than a fair and secure election.”

RRH Elections, a self-described Republican elections blog, reported that Seabaugh won House District 34 by 22 points more than former President Donald Trump did. Trump’s recent narrow victory in the district had been Republican’s slimmest margin in memory.

According to The Peach Tree Times, Georgia’s new election law SB 202 replaces signature matching with voter ID, provides free ID, bolsters ballot drop box security, expands regulations surrounding mail in voting, and extends the number of days to vote early—supporting election integrity across the state.

“That’s because Georgia’s new voting law makes it easy to vote, and harder to cheat, for all Georgians,” Cuccinelli added.