There was never any doubt about the outcome, but in case you wondered, Kasim Reed has officially won the Atlanta mayor’s race after a recount Wednesday by Fulton County election officials showed that he finished 714 votes ahead of City Councilwoman Mary Norwood.
Norwood requested the recount after Reed finished 715 votes ahead of her in the Dec. 1, runoff election. The new tally only changed the margin between the two candidates by one vote, as Reed finished with 42,549 votes to 41,835 for Norwood.
Secretary of State Karen Handel’s office checked into allegations that ineligible voters cast more than 1,300 ballots during the Atlanta mayor’s election, but determined that the charges are not supported by the facts.
Handel released this statement Tuesday afternoon:
On Monday, December 7, 2009, the Secretary of State’s Elections Division received a complaint from an organization called Citizens for Fair Atlanta Elections, alleging that approximately 1,300 ballots were cast in the Atlanta mayoral election by voters whose addresses no longer exist. The Secretary of State’s Office of Inspector General immediately opened a preliminary investigation into this allegation.
Based on preliminary findings, we believe that the original list provided by Citizens for Fair Atlanta Elections is not a list of voters who actually cast a ballot in the Atlanta mayoral election. Rather, it appears to have been created or pooled from a larger list of registered voters. From this list, approximately 40 voters do not appear to have valid residence addresses. The Inspector General’s Office will continue its investigation to determine the eligibility status of these voters. We are forwarding these preliminary investigative findings to the Fulton County Board of Elections and Registration as it conducts its own investigation into this matter.
The ineligible voter allegations were a last-ditch attempt by supporters of Norwood to derail the election results, but Reed, as expected, will be sworn in as Atlanta’s next mayor.
Leave a Reply