Summary: Georgia is having a special election for two board members of the Public Service Commission (PSC), which regulates utilities. Because every seat is elected statewide but the candidates have to live within their geographical district, the entire 5-member board is currently Republican even though GA is a purple state (i.e. the structure of it is designed to destroy the political power of Atlanta liberals).
Georgia Power is the for-profit monopoly electricity provider for most of the state. The PSC generally sides with Georgia Power on every issue. As a result, Georgia Power is allowed to make higher profit margins than utilities of other states (up to 12% compared to the average of 8%) off the backs of ratepayers. It also tends to be allowed to overbuild because that’s how you make more money when your profit margin is fixed, even though overbuilding increases costs for ratepayers and locks them in for decades.
But because the PSC is boring and this is a special election in an off year, turnout is expected to be so low that there’s an opportunity: increasing turnout by just a few thousand people (e.g. possibly fewer than the Georgia audience of a Youtuber like Hank) could be enough to actually sway the outcome.
On top of that (and this is something Hank didn’t mention and probably doesn’t know, but I do) the City of Atlanta has all its local elections for stuff like mayor and city council this year, so turnout of people in the city is likely to be relatively high, which should also help.
The bottom line is, tell everyone you know in Georgia to (a) actually show up for the election and (b) vote for Alicia Johnson and Peter Hubbard, the Democratic challengers.
Summary: Georgia is having a special election for two board members of the Public Service Commission (PSC), which regulates utilities. Because every seat is elected statewide but the candidates have to live within their geographical district, the entire 5-member board is currently Republican even though GA is a purple state (i.e. the structure of it is designed to destroy the political power of Atlanta liberals).
Georgia Power is the for-profit monopoly electricity provider for most of the state. The PSC generally sides with Georgia Power on every issue. As a result, Georgia Power is allowed to make higher profit margins than utilities of other states (up to 12% compared to the average of 8%) off the backs of ratepayers. It also tends to be allowed to overbuild because that’s how you make more money when your profit margin is fixed, even though overbuilding increases costs for ratepayers and locks them in for decades.
But because the PSC is boring and this is a special election in an off year, turnout is expected to be so low that there’s an opportunity: increasing turnout by just a few thousand people (e.g. possibly fewer than the Georgia audience of a Youtuber like Hank) could be enough to actually sway the outcome.
On top of that (and this is something Hank didn’t mention and probably doesn’t know, but I do) the City of Atlanta has all its local elections for stuff like mayor and city council this year, so turnout of people in the city is likely to be relatively high, which should also help.
The bottom line is, tell everyone you know in Georgia to (a) actually show up for the election and (b) vote for Alicia Johnson and Peter Hubbard, the Democratic challengers.