Oconee County Democrats will have to return to the voting booth in four weeks to decide who will represent the party in the November election for District 3 Public Service Commissioner as none of the three candidates on the ballot on Tuesday received a majority.
In Oconee County, Robert Jones received 36.9 percent of the vote, with Peter Hubbard getting 35.9 percent, and Keisha Sean Waites receiving 27.2 percent.
Statewide results had Hubbard with 33.3 percent, Jones with 20.6 percent, and Waites with 46.1 percent, meaning Hubbard, an Atlanta energy consultant, and Waites, a former state representative from Atlanta, will meet in a July 15 runoff.
The Republican Primary on Tuesday had competition for District 2 Public Service Commissioner, with incumbent Tim Echols getting 75.8 percent of the vote, and Augusta area businessman Lee Muns getting 24.2 percent of the vote.
Echols, who now lives in Jackson County, received 85.6 percent of the vote in Oconee County, to 14.4 percent for Muns.
Voters who used the Democratic Ballot in the final voting for the special party primaries on Tuesday made up 36.8 percent of the total, up from the 36.2 percent after early and absentee balloting.
Turnout on Tuesday at the county’s four polling locations was 635, or just slightly less than the 674 who had cast a ballot in early voting. Only 13 cast an absentee ballot leading up to election day.
Final turnout for the special Democratic and Republican party primaries was 3.8 percent of eligible voters.
Additional Details
The Democratic Party Primary for District 3 Commissioner was marred by a controversy over the residency of Daniel Blackman.
 |
| Hubbard From Remote Appearance Before Oconee Democrats 5/15/2025 Waites Did Not Appear |
Public Service Commissioners run statewide, but they must reside in one of the five Districts in the state. District 3 consists of Clayton, DeKalb, and Fulton counties.
Blackman was ruled ineligible after the ballots were finalized because he did not meet the residency requirement. His name appeared on the ballot but votes for him were not counted.
In Oconee County, 487 ballots were cast in the Democratic Party Primary, but only 407 votes were counted in the District 3 race, suggesting that Blackman received 80 votes.
The figure cannot be firm because some people could have voted with the Democratic ballot and simply not voted in that election.
Incumbent Fitz Johnson ran unopposed in the Republican Primary for District 3 and received 706 votes. A total of 835 Republicans voted.
Alicia M. Johnson ran unopposed in the Democratic Primary for District 2 and received 432 of the 487 Democratic votes cast.
District 2, which includes Oconee County and consists of 38 counties from eastern metropolitan Atlanta to the Savannah River and from Hart County in the north to Chatham County in the south.
Runoff
Hubbard works as a clean energy advocate for the Georgia Center for Energy Solutions, whch he created. He was a consultant at Siemens Energy Business Advisory.
He ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives in 2022.
Waites served in the Atlanta City Council from 2020 to 2024 and the Georgia House of Representatives from 2012 to 2017. She has worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency U.S. Small Business Administration.
Early voting for the July 15 runoff is to begin as soon as possible but it cannot be later than July 7 to July 11.
Johnson, who will be on the Democratic Ballot in November for District 2 Commissioner, is scheduled to appear before Oconee County Democrats at the meeting a 6:30 p.m. at the Oconee County Library in Wire Park in Watkinsville.
No comments:
Post a Comment