Friday, July 26, 2024

Oconee County, Clarke County Election Offices Told Secretary Of State Yalamanchili Turned In More Than Needed Accepted Signatures

***Goal Is To Be On District Attorney Ballot In November***

UPDATE: As of 7/30/2024, the Georgia Secretary of State is listing Yalamanchili as "Qualified-- Signatures Accepted," as an Independent candidate for the November ballot.

Kalki Yalamanchili has turned in 9,967 accepted petitions, or just more than twice the number the Secretary of State Office has determined he needs to have his name placed on the ballot on Nov. 5 as an Independent candidate for Western Judicial Circuit District Attorney.

That determination comes from a report filed with the Secretary of State Office dated Friday (July 26) by the Oconee County Office of Elections and Registration and the Clarke County Office of Elections and Voter Registration.

The Report shows that the two offices reviewed 16,021 signatures on the petitions asking that Yalamanchili’s name be on the ballot.

Of those signatures, 3,672 were rejected, and 2,382 were determined to be of persons who were not registered.

The report does not indicate how many of the submitted or accepted signatures came from Oconee County and how many were from Clarke County.

The Secretary of State Office did change its earlier determination that sheets of petitions that contained names from both of the counties that make up the Western Judicial Circuit should be rejected. Those sheets were included in the tally.

Also, the Secretary of State determined that only 4,944 valid signatures were required, down from an earlier estimate of 5,964. Yalamanchili’s accepted 9,967 signatures greatly exceeded that larger number as well.

The only other candidate for district attorney on the November ballot will be incumbent Deborah Gonzalez, who is the Democratic Party nominee.

Republican Option

The Republicans did not put up any candidate in the May primary to challenge Gonzalez, who won in a special election in 2020 after long-time Democratic District Attorney Ken Mauldin stepped down.

Yalamanchili, Gonzalez 4/18/2024

Gonzalez’ office has been plagued by staffing problems and lack of success in the courtroom almost from the beginning.

Yalamanchili announced late last year that he intended to challenge Gonzalez as an Independent, and he has been enthusiastically received and supported by Oconee County Republicans from that point forward.

Yalamanchili also has appeared before Oconee County Democrats seeking support.

Yalamanchili said he did not want to run with a party label, and he states on his web site that "The safety of our families and our community is not a partisan issue. Neither is protecting and respecting our rights. This Office should be a place of public service, not a place to relaunch a political career.”

In the 2020 race, Gonzalez received 48.3 percent of the total vote in the first round of voting, but she received 60.1 percent of the vote in Clarke County and only 24.4 percent of the vote in Oconee County.

In the December runoff, against James Chafin, who ran without a party label, Gonzalez received 51.7 percent of the overall vote, but she received 66.7 percent of the vote in the larger and heavily Democratic Clarke County, and only 23.9 percent of the vote in the smaller and Republican Oconee County.

Candidate Spending, Determination of Needed Signatures

Yalamanchili has had a great deal of success raising money, and the most recent campaign finance reports show that he had $145,517 cash on hand on June 30, compared with $42,584 for Gonzalez.

His spending reports show that he had relied heavily on a variety of consultants, with $100,458 going to Vanguard Field Strategies of Austin, Texas, which specializes in assisting candidates with canvassing.

In February, Oconee County Attorney Daniel Haygood said that the law required that Yalamanchili obtain the signatures of a number of registered voters equal to “5 percent of the registered voters in the last election for this office.”

Registered voters includes both active and inactive voters, according to this interpretation, and that number for Oconee County on Nov. 3, 2020, according to Sharon Gregg, Director of Elections and Registration for Oconee County, was 31,615.

Charlotte Sosebee, Chief Registrar and Director Elections for Clarke County, said the number in that county on that date was 82,256.

Five percent of the total of 113,871 voters in the two counties is 5,694.

The Secretary of State Office used some smaller number. Gregg said on Friday that she did not know the basis for that calculation.

Change Of Procedures

Gregg also said on Friday that “there was an update to our procedures on processing the petition.”

“Originally, through talks with the Secretary of State's office and our attorney on how to handle petition pages with both Clarke and Oconee on them, we were told to disregard the whole page,” she said.

“The procedure changed before the finalization of the petition,” Gregg said.

Gregg said she was advised that she “should just disregard signatures from other counties, however, and not disregard the entire sheet” in the verification process.

Gregg  and her office began the validation process on July 11 after receiving that initial advice from the Secretary of State Office.

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