DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — The halting process of finalizing DeKalb County's primary election voting reached a conclusion Friday, with the county's elections board voting 4-1 to certify the results.
That now officially sets up a runoff in the Board of Commissioners District 2 race between Michelle Long Spears, who had more than 40% of the vote, and Lauren Alexander.
The race threw a wrench into DeKalb's process of counting and certifying its election results because one of the candidates, Don Broussard, dropped out.
When Broussard dropped out, DeKalb County election officials had the choice to either not count the ballots for Broussard or drop his name off the ballot altogether. The county chose the second option and had to reprogram hundreds of voting machines. However, on Election Day, DeKalb election workers discovered several machines still had Broussard on the ballot, which lead to incorrect vote totals.
Spears has said her campaign raised the issue when they saw she had zero votes at several precincts.
The initially incorrect totals made it appear Alexander and another candidate, Marshall Orson, would go to a runoff and that Spears would be left out.
The county conducted a hand count that instead confirmed Spears and Alexander as the top two in the race, with neither reaching more than 50% to avoid a runoff.
The DeKalb Board of Commissioners District 2 seat represents Decatur, Chamblee, Brookhaven, Tucker and parts of Atlanta. There was no Republican candidate in this race, so the winner of this Democratic primary will win the seat.
Runoff voting will be held on June 21.