Early Voters Turn Out for Paulding Run-off Election

Paulding’s Elections and Registration staff have been seeing a good showing of early voters for the July 24th Run-off Election. According to Deidre Holden, supervisor, Paulding County Elections, and Registration, early voting is going well leading into Run-off week. Ms. Holden updated Paulding commissioners during last week’s morning session.
“That is going great. So far, we’ve had 1,478 early voters...and we’re running about 500 ahead of what we had in the Primary, it looks like we’ll have a really good turn-out, Ms. Holden said, who also urged everyone to “get out and vote.”
According to Election office ballot data, despite a light turn-out in the last election, rather than waiting till Election Day, early voters still comprised about 50 percent of votes cast. After the May Primary Election, several candidates found themselves in a Run-off both at the state and local levels.
For Commission Post 2, Dallas resident Sandy Kaecher faces incumbent Todd Pownall. Pownall seeks a third term. For Commission Post 4, Brian Stover of Dallas challenges incumbent Tony Crowe of Dallas. Crowe is seeking to remain for a second term.
For the District 5 school board seat, former Paulding School Superintendent Trudy Sowar of Temple faces engineer John Dean of Dallas. For Dist. 6 school board, Republican Jason Anavitarte of Dallas faces Daniel Nolan III of Acworth.
For Georgia House District 19, Republicans Joseph Gullett of Dallas is challenging incumbent Paulette Rakestraw of Hiram; Rakestraw is seeking her fifth term. In the State School Superintendent race, Sid Chapman faces Otha E. Thornton Jr. For Governor, Casey Cagle and Brian Kemp Lt. Governor’s race are Geoff Duncan and David Shafer and Sec. of State race is David Belle Isle and Brad Raffensperger. Early voting hours at the Watson Government Complex will be extended by one hour, Holden said, every day until 6:00 p.m. this week from July 16th through the July 20th. Saturday voting is not available for the Run-off election.

November Referendum
The ‘Bruch Bill’ passed by state lawmakers will go to local voters in November, as well. The bill allows for extended hours for sales on Sunday. Paulding’s BoC voted 3-2 in favor of a referendum to be included on the November ballot on whether or not to expand the hours for alcohol sales on Sunday to include 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Dallas and Hiram were also voting on this last week. Holden said if the cities approve, then the timeline with regard to implementation would remain consistent between the county and the two municipalities. But Hiram’s council took no action on the agenda item while the Dallas city council approved the item 5-0. For more information on the Primary Run-off, visit the county’s website at Paulding.gov, or call (770)443-7503.