Statewide Vote Totals

• Summary – All Offices
• Federal and Statewide Offices
• Georgia Senate
• Georgia House of Representatives
• District Attorneys
• Court of Appeals

Vote Totals by County
(Federal & Statewide Offices, Georgia General Assembly)

• United States Senator, Isakson [Rep] [Dem]
• Governor [Rep] [Dem]
• Lieutenant Governor [Rep] [Dem]
• Secretary Of State [Rep] [Dem]
• Attorney General [Rep] [Dem]
• State School Superintendent [Rep] [Dem]
• Commissioner Of Insurance [Rep] [Dem]
• Commissioner Of Agriculture [Rep] [Dem]
• Commissioner Of Labor [Rep] [Dem]
• Public Service Commission, District 2 – Eastern [Rep] [Dem]
• U.S. Representative, District 1 [Rep] [Dem]
• U.S. Representative, District 2 [Rep] [Dem]
• U.S. Representative, District 3 [Rep] [Dem]
• U.S. Representative, District 4 [Rep] [Dem]
• U.S. Representative, District 5 [Rep] [Dem]
• U.S. Representative, District 6 [Rep]
• U.S. Representative, District 7 [Rep] [Dem]
• U.S. Representative, District 8 [Rep] [Dem]
• U.S. Representative, District 9 [Rep]
• U.S. Representative, District 10 [Rep] [Dem]
• U.S. Representative, District 11 [Rep]
• U.S. Representative, District 12 [Rep] [Dem]
• U.S. Representative, District 13 [Rep] [Dem]
• Georgia Senate – Districts 1 – 56
• Georgia House – Districts 1 – 180

The results displayed are UNOFFICIAL AND INCOMPLETE until certified by both county election superintendents and the Secretary of State, a process that will not be completed until the week of July 26. These unofficial returns, transmitted by counties to the Secretary of State’s Data Center on election night, are under continuous review for formatting accuracy and are subject to correction at any time.

NOTE: Provisional results not included in races and/or counties with less than 100% of precincts reporting.

For the Democrats (as expected) Roy Barnes dominated bringing in over 65% (with 99% of precincts reporting) of the votes, winning the democratic party nomination. Roy Barnes served one term as Georgia’s Governor from 1999 to 2003.

For the Republicans the race was tight, Karen Handel pulled in over 34% of the votes (with 99% of precincts reporting) but it’s not enough to secure a nomination, Handel needs 50% of the votes and will now inevitably enter a runoff with Nathan Deal. The State of Georgia requires a runoff if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote.

Here are the numbers for each party and candidate. We show number of votes and percentages, as reported by the Secretary of State website.

Gubernatorial Primary Results

Democrats:

• Baker – 85,355 – 21.6%
• Barnes – 258,873 – 65.6%
• Bolton – 3,566 – 0.9%
• Camon – 4,163 – 1.1%
• Mangham – 3,114 – 0.8%
• Porter – 17,752 – 4.5%
• Poythress – 21,762 – 5.5%

Totals – 394,585 – 100.0%

Republicans:

• Chapman – 20,594 – 3.0%
• Deal – 155,795 – 22.9%
• Handel – 231,713 – 34.1%
• Johnson – 136,652 – 20.1%
• McBerry – 17,149O – 2.5%
• Oxendine – 115,253 – 17.0%
• Putnam – 2,542 – 0.4%

Totals – 679,698 – 100.0%

Check out our post for all other elections here Statewide Primary Results

What are your thoughts on the results? Did your candidate do as well as you thought/hoped? In the coming months the Gubernatorial race will undoubtedly get exciting.

An interesting point is the number of voters for each party, with Republicans pulling in almost 670,000 votes while Democrats getting just shy of 395,000. Is this a worth while number to look at? Will Republicans cross party lines and vote Democratic come November? Or were democrats just not worried about Barnes pulling it out in the primary?

The results displayed are UNOFFICIAL AND INCOMPLETE until certified by both county election superintendents and the Secretary of State, a process that will not be completed until the week of July 26. These unofficial returns, transmitted by counties to the Secretary of State’s Data Center on election night, are under continuous review for formatting accuracy and are subject to correction at any time.

NOTE: Provisional results not included in races and/or counties with less than 100% of precincts reporting.

The small business owner of Kemp Properties, a real estate investment and management company, strikes you as the guy next-door. He is a University of Georgia graduate, a board member of St. Mary’s Hospital in Athens, a Habitat for Humanity volunteer and an Emmanuel Episcopal Church member.

“Hey Goose,” he answers his phone after politely excusing himself from a meeting. The playful banter soon turns to directives about making sure homework gets done and after-school activities are taken care of.

“Sorry, about that,” Kemp says, as he turns his attention back to the meeting.

“That was my mother-in-law … my wife is out of town and I’m not going to be done here as soon as I thought so she’s picking up the kids for me and getting homework started,” he explains. No explanation necessary.

The call sums up who Kemp truly is: husband to Marty Argo, father of three daughters, ordinary businessman, former state senator; and, oh yeah, Georgia’s current Secretary of State.

Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue appointed him to the position in January after Karen Handel stepped down to run for governor. But Kemp will seek the voters’ approval to keep the office this coming election season.

He has a good-humored nature that ties him to the everyman. And yet he also conveys the sense that he is a straight shooter with specific goals and ambitions for making things happen in this state.

Georgia.com recently sat down with Mr. Kemp for a one-on-one discussion about his desire to continue serving as Secretary of State and the goals he has for Georgia.

INTERVIEW:
Georgia.com: What was it that first prompted you to get into politics?
Kemp: I was a small business owner in Athens working hard, raising my family and building my business when I first decided to run. The guy that ran for the [state] senate and beat a long-term incumbent was not the type of guy that I thought represented my values or the values of the district. I had lived there my whole life and been involved locally in the community and I had been involved in a few boards and commissions. It was back in a day that there were a lot of things in state government that were going wrong. It was more of a government where they told us what to do versus doing what the people wanted. I felt having a business background and being someone who had grown up and been involved with the community, I could bring a commonsense leadership to state government and that’s why I ran.

Georgia.com: We know fair elections is a huge focus for you; tell us a little bit about your plans on that front?
Kemp: We’ve got to have secure, accessible, fair elections. That’s the number one job of the Secretary of State; nobody takes that more seriously than I do. We’ve got a lot of initiatives that we’ve implemented even in the few months since I’ve been here. We have a new Stop Voter Fraud website where any Georgian can e-mail or call our hot-line if they see elections fraud going on or something improper going on during the election and we’ll investigate. We want our citizens to help us and have them to be a part of secure elections. We want to stop voter fraud.

Georgia.com: Is voter fraud a big issue in this state?
Kemp: Well, there is definitely voter fraud in Georgia. Just attend any state elections board meeting and you’ll hear some of the crazy things that are happening out there. We take it very seriously and work closely with the attorney general’s office and district attorneys if things get criminal.

Georgia.com: Your website addresses your desire to cut out government waste, how exactly do you plan to implement that aspiration?
Kemp: We’ve really tried to use technology to help streamline this agency. I’ve implemented about $2.9 million worth of reductions to our budget. The cuts have pretty much all been self-inflicted, meaning we instituted them by offering them up to the [state] legislature. We’ve redesigned our corporations website making it easier for people to renew their corporations or start a new business online. That’s saving tax dollars because we’re dealing with less paper, we have less printing costs, it takes less personnel to deal with the electronic format. It’s just making government more efficient. But then it also makes it easier on people to use our office.

We’ve implemented that same philosophy in our professional licensing division. We now have 35 of our 190 licenses online. We should have about 50 by the end of the year. And we just consolidated our securities division with our professional licensing division, so we’re saving on rent here in Atlanta.

Georgia.com: You’ve pledged to help Georgia overcome what has grown to be a sizable unemployment rate, how can we get past this slump and become a more business friendly state?
Kemp: When we have a state that has a 10 percent unemployment rate we need an all-hands-on-deck approach in state government as far as job creation goes. And I think a big part of that is helping out existing small business owners, I am one. I think I bring that mentality to this office. We need to continue to make this state one where entrepreneurs want to come and a state where entrepreneurs already here can continue to build their business. My thoughts are to try to get government out of their way, they know what they’re doing, they know how to make money, they know how to be innovative and we don’t want government to get in the way of them doing that.

Georgia.com: That falls in line with your new “Cut the Red Tape” website, tell us a little bit about what it is?
Kemp: It’s really for anyone with a good idea about how we can create jobs, how we can get ridiculous redundant outdated rules or regulations and laws out of the way. People can give us their ideas, we’ll vet them and if it’s a good idea we’ll work with the legislation to get something drawn up that will either repeal old rules or advocate for new ones.

Georgia.com: Have you started to see anything worthwhile from it yet?
Kemp: We have. One idea was to create a one-stop-shop for starting a corporation, so like I said, we’re trying to streamline that process to where it’s more inviting versus someone going ‘Oh, can’t do all this.’ Another great idea was to make Atlanta a money center like Wall Street is to New York and the Commodities Exchange is to Chicago. That’s a big picture idea, but there is nothing too big or too small that we won’t look into.

Georgia.com: Going back to your work with fair elections, we’ve heard you have sponsored legislation that would benefit Georgians oversees, as well as several other initiatives, can you address those?
Kemp: Sure. The legislation specifically helps men and women who are serving in the armed forces. I know you and your readers will agree that we should not have one military service member’s vote disregarded because of slow mail service. But as of now military voting is a mailed absentee ballot and you can imagine what a logistical nightmare it is. One part of the legislation would create a pilot project that would allow the military vote through a kiosk on base. We would be the second state in the country to have done this pilot project if the governor signs the bill. We’re looking for grant money to sponsor it now. The second bill would put us in compliance with the Military and Overseas Voting Empowerment Act. It would speed the process of getting ballots to people overseas by doing things like e-mailing ballots to them and allows them to request all of their ballots at one time. So they can let us know they want a primary ballot, a runoff ballot, a general election ballot all at once.

We’ve also been testing a bar code scanning pilot project that would allow your drivers license to be scanned at your polling location. It would save time, but it would also cut down on error. I don’t believe we’ll be able to have it by the primaries, but hopefully by the general elections we’ll get that out to some counties.

Georgia.com: And finally to kind of sum it all up, why would you tell people that they need to get involved in the election process?
Kemp: In these troubling times in our state and country right now it’s important for people’s voices to be heard. Voters can literally change the direction in the way we’re going. It’s so important for people to know and be educated on who’s representing them and what they stand for. It’s important to be involved in the process. What I’ve tried to tell people is don’t just be a voter, be an educated voter. Make sure you know what people stand for. You know their background. Because a lot of daily life decisions are affected by government.

EXTERNAL LINK RESOURCES:
1. Secretary of State Website
2. Brian Kemp Official Website

Ray McBerry has responded to the allegations via his website, you can read his response here. In this response McBerry states “The story of those making the allegations has changed at least four times; and even the reporter pushing this story has acknowledged in a voicemail to me that those telling it have also changed their story to him in the last week. The allegations are false and even the few shreds of truth that have been allowed to remain are countenanced in a false light by an admixture of half-truths.”

You can watch Karen Handel’s statement from Saturday here on YouTube:

Obviously, this is a good sign the gloves have come off in the GOP Gubernatorial battle.

What is your take?

Small Businesses
The bill will offer tax credits to small businesses to help them provide coverage to their employees. The credits will be up to 35% of the premiums paid, and they are available immediately for business owners in 2010.

This is one of the best parts of the new health bill! Tax breaks for small business!

Pre-Exisitng Conditions 
For the uninsured, especially those due to a pre-existing  condition, the passing of the health care bill takes almost immediate effect.  Effective 90 days from President Obama signing the bill into law, Americans with pre-exsisting conditions will have access to a temporary high-risk pool of insurance until the full bill will take effect on January 1, 2014. For those with private insurance, effective 6 months after enactment health plans will no longer be able to deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions. This will be extended to adults starting in January, 2014.

Another big provision in 2010 will be the ban on rescissions. Health plans will no longer be able to drop people’s coverage based on a sickness. This will take effect 6 months from enactment.

The Good & The Bad ~Not denying children based on pre-existing conditions and not allowing health plans to drop people when they get sick is a great thing. However, I do not see how this plan will be viable when all adults are allowed to join a pool with healthy people and not increase premiums significantly for everyone. I am not a cold hearted person, but I do believe that you reap what you sow. If you had the opportunity to have health insurance and you chose not to, then developed a condition, why should responsible people who have always paid have to now subsidize people who were not responsible? I just have a hard time with this. The obvious wrench in the gears with adults is; why is there a pre-existing condition? Were they children when they developed it? Were they dropped from a plan after they got sick? Or could they afford their cable bill or their health insurance bill, but not both?

Other Changes Coming in 2010

• Senior Citizens will receive $250 rebates to close the donut hole on prescription drugs under Medicare. This amount is scheduled to be increased over time.
• No lifetime limits will be allowed on health care plans. This is something else that I don’t understand. If you remove limits, then you also increase potential liability on health insurance companies. Logically this implies to me higher premiums.
• Extending coverage for children (kind of). Parents can now keep their kids on a family plan until they turn 27.

 
The changes that take place this year are small and subtle. There are many good things that will have a positive effect on both businesses and families this year. The big changes and the more controversial ones start in the years to come, and so do the taxes. More to come…

Thoughts?

User Contributed Article — Learn how to contribute your articles.

With a background in civil service as a city council member, mayor and a number of other government boards, Camon believes in the ideals of public service. “I’ve worked to return government back to the people and I’ve treated citizens like they deserved to be treated,” he told Georgia.com, about what he sees as some of his greatest contributions to Georgia.

It’s that belief in himself and his track record which motivated Camon to make a run for the seat of governor during this next election. “I could have supported another candidate, or sat back and complained about our current situation,” he said. “Instead, I chose to lead by example and I have the ability to facilitate positive and long lasting change for Georgia.”

Georgia.com: A reoccurring sentiment in Georgia and the rest of the country seems to be that government has become too large and intrusive. Is this something you believe to be true?
Camon: In some ways, this is true. However, we live in a democracy, where there are legal elections held during specified periods of time. The people cast their votes to elect a representative who will speak on their behalf. If government is too large and intrusive, it became that way either because of the general consent of the people or a blatant disregard for the people, by the very ones who were elected to represent the people.

I will work to assess all state services and programs and ensure that each one submits a plan to the governor’s office that includes measures that offer ways to be more efficiently operated. Each agency will also be required to provide a comprehensive report as to the effectiveness of that agency and how Georgians are benefiting from its existence and what impact would be made if the agency was downsized or eliminated. Based on the information above, care consideration and determinations will be made, with regards to what agencies will be effective.

Georgia.com: What specifically are your plans for potentially shrinking or streamlining Georgia government?
Camon: Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Independents alike, deserve to have a Governor who will recognize that our country is still a democracy and that the voices of the people are supreme. I will be that governor.

Georgia.com: The state unemployment rate has skyrocketed. What are your plans for job creation and potentially making Georgia a more business friendly venue that will encourage entrepreneurship, attract existing business and increase investment in our economy?
Camon: Under my administration, we will market Georgia. “If you need it, Georgia’s Got It.” [We will] market our mountains, coast, Southern Hospitality, agriculture, world’s busiest airport, film industry possibilities, institutions of higher learning; [we will] offer incentives that will clearly create jobs for Georgians.

Georgia.com: Traffic flow and congestion have been problems in and around Atlanta for some time. What steps would you take as Governor to improve, not only Atlanta’s transportation systems and infrastructure, but Georgia’s as a whole?
Camon: I was one of the first candidates to publically and seriously support the idea of high-speed rail, especially during many of the gubernatorial debates. Atlanta is important and we will work with the Department of Transportation to devise a plan to decrease gridlock and increase traffic flow in the Metro Area. We will also find a way to fund (in phases) high-speed rail throughout Georgia.

Georgia.com Staff Report — This article is part of the Georgia.com Gubernatorial Election Series.

The Federal Republic was conceived when, in an effort to throw off the yoke of a powerful tyrant state that controlled them all, Aigroeg and a number of other oppressed states joined together in a confederation and declared their independence from the tyrant state of Eporue. Following years of bloody military conflict, which more often than not favored Eporue, the confederation miraculously defeated the tyrant state and became officially recognized by other nations of the world as a sovereign nation in its own right, the Federal Republic of Acirema.

The federated states developed a written compact based on the idea that each human being has rights granted by God that cannot be taken away, and that any powers incorporated into a government are granted to that government by agreement of the people. The compact also stressed the premise that each of the states would maintain its own government and remain, for most purposes, a sovereign state. A central government was established by the states for the limited purposes of facilitating international and interstate commerce, managing international relations in general, and developing and maintaining a military to provide for the security of the nation and its citizens. The central government’s ability to raise revenue from the various states was limited to an amount necessary to adequately perform those functions.

The belief of the composers of the written compact and the majority of the citizens of all the states of Acirema was that the best government is one that is as close as possible to the people it governs. Additionally, it was felt that with each of the states operating independently, multiple approaches to mutual problems could be developed and the best solution would eventually rise to the top to be available for imitative implementation in the various states, but upon their own volition.

Operating fundamentally on this basis by using the written compact as its strict guidelines, the Federal Republic thrived for many generations, incorporated additional states, and grew from the original group of states clustered along the Citnalta coast, to a continental nation stretching from the Citnalta Sea in the East to the Cificap Sea in the West. In fact, Acirema developed into the most free, most prosperous, most powerful, and most benevolent nation the world had ever seen.

Not that there weren’t downturns and times of crisis – there most certainly were. At one point, in fact, the federation was nearly dissolved in a conflict involving the most basic of human rights and one of the most fundamental political tenets on which the federation was built. Appropriately and fortunately the cause of the human rights won out, and the federation, although seriously injured, survived and began a long painful healing process.

Unfortunately, in its weakened state and in light of the effect of power on politicians and the tendency of citizens to become complacent, uninformed and uninvolved, the sustainability of certain fundamental founding Acireman principles began to deteriorate. Although subsequent crises tended to serve as periodic accelerators, it was a slow gradual deterioration process. In retrospect Aciremans like to describe the process using an old Acireman folk tale about how if you put a gorf (a small green web-footed creature found in the swamps and waterways of Acirema) into a pot of boiling water the gorf will jump out. However if you put the same gorf into water that is at room temperature and then gradually heat the water to a boil, the gorf will sit in the pot until cooked. The moral of the story being that citizens of Aigroeg and other Acireman states will allow themselves to be politically cooked as long as the politicians are patient and use a low flame.

It all started innocently enough when the central government began, for facially admirable motives, to inject itself into areas of governance where, according to the written charter that initially created the central government, it had no business. Using scare tactics based on the bad behavior of some states leading up to and during the major conflict referred to above, central-government politicians were eventually able to incorporate some ambiguously worded alterations into the founding charter granting them significantly expanded flexibility in passing legislation and regulating areas of life in the various states. Ultimately, in order to be able to gather revenues sufficient to support the central government’s expanded role, an additional change was made to the original charter allowing the central government virtually unlimited ability to appropriate funds from each citizen of every state. The intended relationship was virtually turned on its head. Where originally the central government would solicit revenue from the states to fulfill its charter-assigned responsibilities, now the central government started doling out revenue to the states complete with attached stipulations increasing the control of the central government over the states. No longer were there competing approaches to problems, now there was one approach, the central government’s approach. No longer did a citizen of Aigroeg or any other state have the option of fleeing from oppressive government in one state to a more palatable government in another state; now the conditions in all the states were uniformly oppressive in obeisance to the central government.

The ship of state, with an unlimited supply of fuel (revenue), had completely broken from its moorings. There seemed to be very little that the citizens or even the few politicians faithful to the traditional tenets of the charter could do to prevent the ship from drifting or even motoring this way or that. In stormy weather (crisis situations – real and manufactured) the out-of-control drifting and motoring became even more pronounced. Ultimately, the citizens of Aigroeg and Acirema found themselves one dark and stormy night in a place where the harbor was nowhere in sight and the ship was listing to port as a result of taking on too much water (debt). The compass (original charter) had been washed overboard and there was fear that the ship was going down.

It was under these alarming conditions that an informed and aroused Aigroegian Citizenry with the assistance of a handful of courageous state politicians finally began steering their state back in the direction of first principles and sanity. They fought back using a passage in the original charter that, although seldom referenced by politicians or jurists in recent memory, clearly states that “The powers not delegated to the central government by the charter, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”. Amendments were made to the Aigroeg charter, lawsuits were initiated challenging central government legislation, and legislation was passed in the Aigroeg legislature all in an effort to re-establish the sovereignty of Aigroeg and re-capture the freedom that had once made Aigroeg a haven for business and a paradise for its citizens.

Some of the specific initiatives:

• Income Taxes were cut significantly
• Corporate Taxes were eliminated
• Regulations on business were significantly reduced
• Unionization of government employees was prohibited
• State Government workforce was cut in half
• Welfare was reformed and limited to temporary workfare
• Tax laws were revised to significantly favor marriage and raising children
• Tort reform was accomplished
• Health Savings Account restrictions were eliminated
• Health Insurance mandates were eliminated
• Health Insurance could be purchased across state lines
• Tough child-support laws were passed with enforcement muscle
• Education grants were established to follow children to the school of their choice

Some of the results:

• State revenue increased
• Business/industry flocked to Aigroeg from other states and overseas
• Entrepreneurs and professionals of all stripes emigrated from other states
• State budget deficit was eliminated
• State achieved full employment
• Out of wedlock birth rate was drastically reduced
• Health Insurance and health care costs plummeted
• Crime rates improved significantly
• State went from near bottom to top on students’competitive test scores

Even in the company of this impressive list of results, the initiation of similar programs by more than a handful of other states was the most significant outcome of all. Other states saw the successes, resented the business and brain drain to Aigroeg, and followed the path of resistance to the central government that Aigroeg had blazed. For the first time in a long while there was hope that change was moving Acirema in the right direction.

This article was contributed by a Georgia.com user. Learn how to contribute your articles.

So, is this enough incentive for companies in the private sector to start hiring again? And if so, will the amount of new hires be enough to warrant the $15 billion price tag? Is this bill targeted at certain industries? Public sector jobs? And if “tax cuts” are the solution to the current jobs crisis…why is there not an across the board tax cut for ALL companies, small, medium and large, to drastically increase the number of new hires and start lowering the unemployment rate? This doesn’t seem like it will help the looming social security crisis that we will have on our hands in the next decade either…

Is this yet another bill that has not been fully thought through and is purely a politcal move that Georgians and tax payers all across the country will have to pay for? Time will tell.

John Oxendine (Fire and Insurance Commissioner)-45%
Roy Barnes-37%

Karen Handel (Secretary of State)-45%
Roy Barnes-36%

Nathan Deal (Congressman)-43%
Roy Barnes-37%

Barnes is also running even against State Senate President, Eric Johnson 37%-37%.

Both parties will choose their candidates in primaries on July 20th.

Each week, over the next 14 weeks, Georgia.com will highlight each candidate independently. Discussing their strengths, weaknesses and their stand on the issues. It will be important for the candidates to see you chime in and provide your opinions and feedback on the issues.

Before we begin to highlight the candidates themselves, let’s talk about where Georgia has been, where it is now and where its heading. Here are some interesting facts about Georgia from the last decade:

Past:

• State Population : 8,186,453 / yr. 2000 (source: U.S. Census)
• State GDP : $290.9 billion / yr. 2000 (source: U.S. Dept. of Commerce)
• State Education Rank : Ranked 47th /yr. 2000 (on a 1 to 51 scale, 1 being best, source: alec.org)
• Per Capita Income : $27,794 /yr. 2000 (source: U.S. Dept. of Commerce)

Present: (or close)

• State Population : 9,685,744 / yr. 2009 / 18.3% increase (source: U.S. Census)
• State GDP : $397.8 billion / yr. 2008 (source: U.S. Dept. of Commerce)
• State Education Rank : Ranked 44th / yr. 2008 (on a 1 to 51 scale, 1 being best, source: alec.org)
• Per Capita Income : $34,893 / yr. 2008 (source: U.S. Dept. of Commerce)

As you can see, our population has grown by almost 20% (and this is a 2009 estimate) over 10 years. That works out to an estimated growth of 12,495 new Georgians a month! Our State GDP has increased over 12% and is the 26th ranked GDP in the world as of 2008 (based on World Bank figures). Our education rank is low at 44, but better than eight years prior. Our per capita income growth rate is ranked 49th in the nation, as of 2008 figures. It should also be noted that between 1980 and 1996 Georgia ranked first in per capita income growth rate.

As we near the election of a new Governor of Georgia, the issues that we face not only as a state but as a nation are in full effect. It has been a tough time for people all over our great country. The changes or remedies we attempt from this point will undoubtedly define us for years to come. This is a defining moment.

We have estimated, what we think to be, the list of the top 10 Georgia political issues. Please feel free to add to our list, or create a new Voice for the issues that we may have missed or that are important to you.

The issues and the questions:

• State Debt : $1.251 billion (est. 2009 / source: State of Georgia Budget Report)
• Taxes : How are you effected? Lower them? Or Raise them? And for who?
• Education : Can we do better? Average Teacher salary in Georgia = $48,300.00
• Privacy : How do you feel about Government and your privacy?
• Gun Control : Are we headed for tighter restrictions?
• Immigration : What is your stance?
• Property Taxes : Should they be eliminated?
• Economy : What are the steps to encourage growth?
• Small Business : What can we do to help Small Businesses?
• Transportation : How can we fix the issues with transportation? What areas would you focus on?

The Candidates: (in alphabetical order of first name)
Candidates website and twitter accounts provided here.

• Austin Scott : http://www.scottforga.com : @scottforga
• David Poythress : http://www.poythressforgovernor.com : @davidpoythress
• Dubose Porter : http://www.porterforga.com : @porterforga
• Eric Johnson : http://www.johnsonforgeorgians.com : @johnson4georgia
• Jeff Chapman : http://www.jeffchapmanforgovernor.com : @chapmanforgov
• John Monds : http://www.votemonds.com : @votemonds
• John Oxendine : http://www.johnoxendine.com : @johnoxendine
• Karen Handel : http://www.karenhandel.com : @karenhandel
• Nathan Deal : http://www.dealforgovernor.com : @votedeal
• Ray McBerry : http://www.georgiafirst.org : @georgiafirst
• Roy Barnes : http://www.roy2010.com : @roy_2010
• Thurbert Baker : http://www.thurbertbaker.com : @thurbertbaker

No shortage of options in this race, and there’s a lot to digest. Next week our coverage begins of each candidate in our Georgia2010 Voices! We will learn the candidates beliefs and stance on issues with relevant information that may affect, good or bad, these candidates run for Governor of our great state of Georgia.
So what do you think Georgia? What are your answers to the issues? Let the discussions begin!