Georgia’s 2014 primary season may shrink to June 3 | Political Insider | www.ajc.com

via Georgia’s 2014 primary season may shrink to June 3 | Political Insider | www.ajc.com.

Three things:

First, I published those dates on June 20th, three-and-a-half weeks ago, and again in the Morning News on June 21st.

Second, “a federal judge is likely to file soot.” Beyond the obvious problem with that, federal judges do not file suit, except in their individual capacities. It would be the Department of Justice that would file suit.

Third, making the general primary election earlier doesn’t bother me as much as moving the general election runoff into 2015, very close to the opening of the General Assembly Session.

Georgia’s 2014 primary season may be about to shrink by more than a month – from the traditional mid-July event to June 3.

The U.S. Department of Justice had long objected to the lack of turnaround time for ballots cast overseas by the military in Georgia’s races. Secretary of State Brian Kemp had offered to delay closing out the votes for a longer period – as was done last year. But the DOJ has rejected that – and a federal judge is likely to file soot.

Read the pertinent document here. An outline of the DOJ plan, from Kemp spokesman Jared Thomas:

— The DOJ’s proposed plan is to require our federal primary election to be held on the Tuesday 22 weeks before the general election, which would be June 3rd for 2014.

— For any primary runoffs, the DOJ proposes that those be held 13 weeks before the general election, which would be August 5th for 2014.

— For any federal runoff election in the general election, the DOJ proposes that the runoff be held 9 weeks after the general election, which would be January 6, 2015 for the 2014 election cycle.

via Georgia’s 2014 primary season may shrink to June 3 | Political Insider | www.ajc.com.