School board races may cause slight spike in turnout
- 11/29/10
- Categorized in: DeKalb News, Education, Politics
Voter turnout in DeKalb County for this runoff election is expected to be slightly higher than the August runoff, according to county election officials.
Two DeKalb County School Board seats are in runoffs, as is a DeKalb County Superior Court judge’s seat. There also are two statewide runoffs—one for a state Supreme Court seat and one for a state Court of Appeals judge.
Maxine Daniels, head of the county’s Board of Elections, said the August runoff had an 8 percent voter turnout in the county. She said she expects about 10 percent to vote for the Nov. 30 runoffs.
Three school board incumbents won in the general election three weeks ago, and two others are in runoffs. In District 7, incumbent Zepora Roberts faces Donna Edler. In the general election, Roberts had 7,070 votes (37.36 percent) and Edler had 5,812 votes (30.71 percent). There were more than 6,000 votes cast for other candidates.
In District 1, Nancy Jester got 9,192 votes (45.75 percent) in the general election while incumbent Jim Redovian got 8,945 votes (44.52 percent). More than 1,900 votes were cast for other candidates.
“The school board runoffs may cause higher turnouts in some pockets in the county, but overall we expect it to be fairly slow,” Daniels said.
Early voting was held Nov. 17 through Nov. 24, Monday through Friday. Election offices will be closed for Thanksgiving Day and on Nov. 26; there is no voting on Dec. 1. As expected, Daniels said, early voting got off to a slow start last week with only 50 people casting ballots on Nov. 17.
“Generally, the first day is very slow and we expect it to pick up as you get closer to the holidays and people get ready to go out of town,” Daniels said.
One Superior Court judge’s seat is open, to succeed Robert Castellani. Courtney Johnson received 58,293 votes (36.73 percent) in the general election while Michael Rothenberg got 41,430 votes (26.10 percent). More than 58,000 votes were cast for other candidates in that race.
Statewide runoffs are Tammy Lynn Adkins vs. incumbent David Nahmias for state Supreme Court justice and Antoinette “Toni” Davis vs. Chris McFadden for state Court of Appeals judge, to succeed Edward Johnson.
