By D.L. Bennett

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Fulton County elections officials on Saturday certified results from Tuesday's municipal elections, getting four Atlanta runoffs off to an official start.

The final numbers show two-term Councilwoman Mary Norwood begins the mayoral runoff with a 7,471-vote cushion over former state Sen. Kasim Reed, who's making his first bid for an office at City Hall. Norwood, who was the top vote-getter in her previous two citywide races in Atlanta, held that position again when final numbers were certified.

The veteran council member had 36,091 votes from both Fulton and DeKalb counties compared with Reed's 28,620. Polls showed Reed well behind Norwood as recently as three weeks ago, but Reed closed strongly and moved past Lisa Borders into second place.

The mayor's race also got more ballots than any other contest in the city with 78,790 votes cast. By comparison, the citywide race for council president had 68,738 -- more than 10,000 fewer.

The two mayoral finalists will be circling the city with candidates for three other seats, all aiming at the final vote on Dec. 1.

Clair Muller and Ceasar Mitchell will make a second attempt to get elected council president. Mitchell ended the race just 796 votes shy of the 50 percent plus 1 vote that he needed to avoid the Dec. 1 runoff. The final tallies had Mitchell at 33,453 to Muller's 28,737.

Another race to be contested citywide comes in Post 2 at-large, the seat Norwood left after eight years to run for mayor.

The final numbers show Aaron Watson with a solid lead over Amir Farokhi. Watson's 27,285 votes were 1,516 votes more than what Farokhi drew. Watson had 44 percent of the vote to Farokhi's 41 percent.

City voters in the eastside, including the neighborhoods of Candler Park, Lake Clair and Virginia-Highland, will have a runoff to fill the District 6 seat left empty by Anne Fauver's decision not to seek a third four-year term. In that race, Alex Wan finished at 32 percent with 3,062 votes among six candidates. Liz Coyle squeaked into second place with 2,172, or 23 percent.