The next state to dip a toe into alternative voting methods may be Georgia, where lawmakers are considering a bipartisan proposal far different from recent election changes that drew national criticism from voting rights advocates.
Members of the Georgia General Assembly have introduced legislation that would allow the use of instant runoff, or ranked-choice, for local elections, potentially creating significant savings in a state that often has to hold an additional round of voting after Election Day.
Versions of the legislation have been introduced in both chambers, and with both Republican and Democratic sponsors. While these bills would only impact municipal elections, successful implementation could lead to changes for federal and state elections. Last year, Georgia approved ranked-choice voting for military and overseas voters.
Georgia holds runoff elections when no candidate in a race earns a majority of the vote. In November 2020, when Georgia had two Senate races, both contests had to go to a runoff. Election administrators in Fulton, the state’s most populous county, had to spend another $6.1 million on the January 2021 elections, on top of the $38 million spent in 2020.
And last year, approximately 30 municipalities required runoffs, including Atlanta, according to Thomas Gehl, director of governmental relations of the Georgia Municipal Association
“We’re getting positive comments from legislators about it,” said Gehl, whose organization supports the proposal because it's optional and could create cost savings.
Both Gehl and Bill Bozarth, treasurer of the RCV-backing group Better Ballot Georgia, believe it is too early to say whether this bill would lead to broader use of instant runoffs in the state. But Bozarth said success at the local level could create some momentum.
“We think that the sponsors of this bill have acted wisely in putting something forward that the General Assembly could be comfortable with,” he said. “If successful I would fully expect us to pivot to working with some municipalities to start experimenting.”
In an RCV system, voters rank their preferred candidates on one ballot. If a candidate received a majority of first-choice votes, the election is complete. But if no one receives a majority, the candidate with the fewest appearances in the top spot is eliminated and their support is automatically redistributed to voters’ second choice. This continues until someone has a majority.
Use of ranked-choice voting has been expanding around the country, with New York City using it for the first time last year and Alaska adopting it for statewide elections. More than 50 jurisdictions may use RCV in the next few years, according to the RCV advocates at FairVote.
Voters in Memphis had approved the use of RCV but the Tennessee General Assembly recently passed a bill prohibiting it.
The 2021 law that permitted RCV for overseas voters was more widely known for tightening the voting rules. The changes included new voter ID requirements, limits on ballot drop boxes, new deadlines for absentee voting, and restrictions on handing out food or water to people waiting in line. The Republican-driven changes followed Joe Biden’s narrow victory in the state, the first time a Democrat won Georgia since 1992.
Democrats, voting rights groups and some corporations were highly critical of the law, and Major League Baseball pulled its 2021 All Star Game out of the state.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.