Early voting in Oconee County for the June 17 Public Service Commission primaries is off to an extremely slow start.
After five days of voting, only 160 voters have cast a ballot, 49 of them in the Democratic Primary and 111 in the Republican Primary.
That is a turnout rate so far of 0.5 percent of the county’s 34,515 eligible voters.
After five days of early voting in the May 2024 General Primary/Nonpartisan General Election, turnout also was low, at 1.7 percent of the then eligible 33,143 voters.
The Democratic vote represents 30.6 percent of the 160 votes cast so far.
In final voting in the May 2024 General Primary/Nonpartisan General Election in Oconee County, 17.5 percent of the votes cast were with a Democratic ballot, 79.5 percent were with a Republican Ballot, and 2.9 percent were with a Nonpartisan Ballot.
The Oconee County Democratic Party has continued its canvassing to increase voter turnout, but clearly both parties are having difficulty convincing voters of the importance of the contest.
The Public Service Commission does not regulate the rates of Walton EMC, which serves much of Oconee County, but it does regulate the rates of Georgia Power, which has customers in the county, and Walton EMC partners with Georgia Power indirectly in operation of the regulated Plant Vogtle nuclear power plant near Waynesboro.
In addition, the Public Service Commission has responsibility for the Integrated Resource Plans for the state’s utilities and for rules governing charges for new data centers throughout the state.
June 17 Ballot
The June 17 election is a special one called only for the purposes of electing two of the five members of the Public Service Commission.
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| Screen Shot Forum 5/27/2025 Muns, Waites, Hubbard, Blackman, Jones (L-R) |
That election was delayed because of legal challenges to the way the elections are conducted.
Commissioners, who serve for six year terms, must live in one of five Districts in the state, but they run state-wide. That dilutes the votes within the District the commissioner is supposed to representative.
Oconee County voters in the Democratic primary are selecting from among four candidates for District 3 Commissioner: Daniel Blackman, Peter Hubbard, Robert Jones, and Keisha Sean Waites.
Oconee County is in District 2, and Alicia M. Johnson is on the Democratic ballot unopposed for that nomination.
Republican voters will select between incumbent Tim Echols and Lee Muns for District 2.
The name of Fitz Johnson, also an incumbent, appears unopposed on the ballot for District 3.
Blackman, Hubbard, and Jones appeared before the Oconee County Democrats on May 15. A representative of Echols appeared before the Oconee County Republicans on May 19.
Blackman, Hubbard, Jones, Waites, and Muns participated in a forum held by Atlanta Area Council on May 27. Host Chris King of Fox 5 Atlanta indicated all candidates had been invited.
Blackman, who is from Forsyth County, changed his voter registration address in April to an Atlanta apartment so he could run in District 3, which consists only of Clayton, DeKalb, and Fulton counties.
His registration is being challenged, and he has been disqualified from the race and then reinstated, at least for now.
District 2 consists of 38 counties from eastern metropolitan Atlanta to the Savannah River and from Hart County to Chatham County.
Early Voting
The first week of early voting, which did not start until Tuesday because of the holiday, will continue through June 13, with Saturday voting on May 31 and June 7.
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Early voting is at he Oconee County Administrative Building, 7635 Macon Highway, north of Watkinsville.
Voting on June 17 will be at the Oconee County Civic Center for the new Oconee Central precinct, at Poplar Springs Baptist Church for the Oconee South Precinct, at Bethabara Baptist Church for the Dark Corner Precinct, and at Marswood Hall for the new Oconee Northeast Precinct.
Early voting by precinct so far shows that 87 votes have been cast by voters registered in Oconee Central Precinct (0.5 percent of total), 22 in Oconee South (0.6 percent), 12 in Dark Corner (0.3 percent), and 39 in Oconee Northeast (0.6 percent).
On Tuesday, 41 persons voted, followed by 38 on Wednesday, 31 on Thursday, 35 on Friday, and only 15 on Saturday.
Nature Of Campaign
At the Oconee County Democratic Party meeting on May 15, the three candidates for District 3 made it clear that their opponents were the incumbents on the Public Service Commission, made up of five Republicans.
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| Muns Screen Shot 5/27/2025 |
“I believe any of us can do a better job” than incumbent Fitz Johnson, Blackman said.
The Public Service Commission has overseen the development of the four-unit Plant Vogtle through numerous construction delays and cost overruns.
More recently, the Commission approved rate increases for Georgia Power once in 2023 and twice in 2024.
District 3 candidate Hubbard, in that May 15 meeting with the Oconee County Democrats, said that Georgia Power has undue influence on the terms of the Integrated Resource Plans. The 2025 Plan currently is under review.
Oglethorpe Power, which wholesales power to the EMCs (Electric Membership Cooperatives) such as Walton, ends up joining with Georgia Power because of the size of Georgia Power, Hubbard said.
Oglethorpe Power Corp is owned by its 38 retail EMC members, including Walton.
“When we build expensive infrastructure,” Hubbard said, “everybody pays for it.”
“The current commissioners that sit there now,” Muns said at the May 27 forum in Atlanta, “when somebody come there and says something they just listen to it, but they don't do anything about it.”
“You got to have somebody that's going to ask the tough questions,” he said. “You got to have somebody that's going to say ‘No, not on my watch.’ We're going to change things and we're going to move forward and it's going to be better for the people at the bottom, not the people at the top.”
Campaign Finance Reports
The Georgia Campaign Finance System of the Georgia Ethics Commission contains campaign finance reports for only two of the eight candidates for Public Service Commission on the July 17 ballot.
District 2 Republican candidate Tim Echols reports total contributions of $230,362, with his top contributor State Farm, at $10,797, followed seven contributions at $8,400 each.
Gunter Construction of Lawrenceville, which does pipeline construction, has contributed $8,400 twice.
Other contributors are Green Power Solutions, Georgia Telephone Association, Georgia Large Scale Solar Association, American Clear Power Association, and Ben Tarbutton III, president of the Sandersville Railroad Company.
District 2 Democratic candidate Alicia Johnson reported total contributions of $13,040, with top contributor Scott Satterwhite, at $3,000.
She reported two contributions at $2,500, from Krista Brewer and Pamela Woodley.
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