A reporter tried to look into low voter turnout in Chattahoochee County and found local officials were…not interested in talking. Via @Brambleman ozy.com/acumen/the-cou…
@Brambleman Renowned Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock explains that many of the county's 10,000 “residents” are in the military, and even if they register to vote in Georgia, they aren't too likely to vote while deployed. 
@Brambleman I have pointed out previously that the state House district including Chattahoochee County is malapportioned for this exact reason.
@Brambleman Three counties – Chattahoochee, Muscogee, and Bryan – treat their military bases as empty precincts and assign the few voters on them to other precincts, obscuring the turnout issue except in Chattahoochee, because it is so dominated by Fort Benning.
As an aside, in Muscogee, Fort Benning is not included in city council district definitions, so military personnel can vote for mayor but not for council. This affected 22 voters last May; if they had November mayoral elections, it would've affected ~170 people.
Anyway, two counties actually report the votes on their military bases normally: Liberty (Fort Stewart / 13 Button Gwinnett precinct) and Richmond (Fort Gordon / 803 Jamestown Community Center). These precincts show similarly low turnout.
Richmond precinct 803 had 13.25% RV turnout last year (22 voters). The next-worst turnout was in precinct 106, at 39.48%, nearly three times the rate of precinct 803. results.enr.clarityelections.com/GA/Richmond/91…
In the Button Gwinnett precinct, 225 of 1,992 registered voters – 11.3% – voted last year. No other precinct in the county was below 40%. results.enr.clarityelections.com/GA/Liberty/917…
I noticed all of this about two weeks ago when I tried to include military bases as a geographic map feature, but I wasn't quite sure how the military bases were related to low turnout *among registered voters*. But Bullock's explanation makes sense.
(As the tweet I quoted shows, I've been aware of Chattahoochee County's turnout dynamics for months.)
When I made my HD 138 map, I tried a couple of times to reach the county probate judge/election supervisor via email. I never received a response to a simple request for a Statement of Votes Cast.
(The issue is probably that he doesn't check his email.)
