The Columbia County Board of Elections certified the results for the Feb. 13 House District 125 special election and received an update about the upcoming elections in March during the meeting on Friday, Feb. 16.
Nancy Gay, board of elections executive director, told board members there were four provisional ballots cast and accepted from election night. The official results Columbia County were: C.J. Pearson: 1,257, Gary Richardson: 1,502, Jim Sneed: 716, Kay Turner: 575 and John Turpish: 27, for a total of 4,077 votes cast total.
Because no candidate received more than 50% of the vote, Pearson and Richardson are moving to a runoff on March 12. Gay stated the law says early voting must for the runoff must be done as soon as possible, but no later than the second Monday before Election Day. That because of the amount of time required for legal advertising and L&A testing, the tentative start date for early voting is Saturday, March 2. While that date is tentative, early voting will definitely take place March 4-8 for the House District 125 runoff.
Early voting for the Presidential Preference Primary and the Grovetown City Council special election, will start Monday, Feb. 19 and run through March 8, Monday – Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for the Saturday voting on Feb. 24 and March 2. Advanced voting will take place at the Columbia County Board of Elections Building G-3 (610 Ronald Reagan Drive) and the former Euchee Creek Library (5907 Euchee Creek Drive).
Gay told board members that qualifying for the special election to fill the unexpired term for the District 3 seat will take place Feb. 26 starting at 9 a.m. and will end at 5 p.m. on Feb. 28. This is to fill the seat left by Gary Richardson resigning to run for the District 125 race.
Qualifying for the following offices will take place from March 4 at 9 a.m. until March 8 at noon: Congressional District 12, State Senate Districts 23 and 24, State House Districts 123,125, 127 and 131, Superior Court Judge, Judge of Probate Court, Clerk of Superior Court, Sheriff, Tax Commissioner, Chief Magistrate, County Commissioner Districts 2 and 3, Coroner, Board of Education Chairperson and Board of Education Districts 1 and 4.
Voter registration can be checked at mvp.sos.ga.gov.
Stephanie Hill is the managing editor and covers Columbia County government for The Augusta Press. Reach her at stephanie@theaugustapress.com.
