On Nov. 5, 2024, voters in Georgia’s Ben Hill and Tift County School Districts will return to the polls and weigh in on two redo elections. 

In Ben Hill County, the redo features District 6 incumbent Kenneth Palmer and Austin Futch. This is a nonpartisan special general election, with the winner filling out the remainder of an unexpired term.

In Tift County, District 1 incumbent Marilyn Burks and Ambrose King Jr. will redo the Democratic primary. Since no Republicans participated in the primaries earlier this year, this race will function as a general election, with the winner assuming a full term on the school board.

Both elections originally took place on May 21. 

A redo election, also known as a revote or special election remedy, is the process of voiding election results and holding a new election between the same candidates.

In both Georgia races, these redos were caused by a combination of narrow margins and mapping errors that placed voters in districts other than where they actually lived.

Those mapping errors meant voters who should have been able to vote in these elections could not because they either received or would have received the wrong ballot.

Errors like these alone don’t always necessitate a redo election. But when the number of affected voters is larger than the margin of victory, the election could have had a different outcome had that error not occurred.

In Ben Hill County, Palmer received 117 votes to Futch’s 100, but the mapping error there affected a road with 26 eligible voters.

And in Tift County, Burks received 156 votes to King’s 154. That mapping error affected a single apartment complex, home to six eligible voters.

Redo elections are uncommon at the national and state level, occurring more frequently in local races, which often involve fewer voters, meaning a slight discrepancy could call the election results into question.

Earlier this year, Ballotpedia covered a similar situation in Oklahoma’s Sequoyah Public Schools. In that case, it wasn’t a mapping error, but rather the presence of out-of-district votes and one double-vote that necessitated the redo.

Ballotpedia is covering every election in Georgia, Oklahoma, and 24 other states this year as part of our growing local election coverage.