A challenge to Fulton County Commissioner Khadijah Abdur-Rahman’s reelection bid for the District 6 seat fizzled Thursday when the person who filed the challenge didn’t show up in time at a scheduled hearing.
Reached afterward, Abdur-Rahman said that Patti Gill — who filed the challenge — claimed Abdur-Rahman doesn’t live in her own commission district. The commissioner called that assertion “absurd.” Gill could not be reached for comment.
At the start of the county Board of Registration & Elections’ special meeting, chair Patrise Perkins-Hooker immediately called for a brief hold.
“While I was in the parking lot I found out that Ms. Gill needs 20 minutes to get here,” she said before calling a 20-minute recess.
“Is she a tenured professor? How long do we have to wait?” Republican board member Michael Heekin joked, referring to the adage that college students are expected to wait specific lengths of time for absent professors to arrive in class.
Twenty minutes passed. The board reconvened.
“The challenger has not appeared,” Perkins-Hooker said, and called out to the small audience for Gill to step forward if she was present.
No answer. Then, Perkins-Hooker took a motion to dismiss the challenge from Democratic board member Aaron Johnson. It was unanimously approved.
Abdur-Rahman, elected in 2020, holds one of three Fulton commission seats up for election this year. In the May 21 Democratic primary she is expected to face Ali Carter, who served as chief of staff to Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens when Dickens was a city councilman.
Before Perkins-Hooker adjourned the meeting, Director of Elections Nadine Williams read a statement on behalf of elections staff, praising and thanking Perkins-Hooker for nearly a year of service as board chair.
Presented with a bouquet, Perkins-Hooker returned the thanks and praise. At the elections board’s April 11 regular meeting she announced she was stepping down to serve as interim city attorney for the city of Atlanta, effective May 8.
On Wednesday county commissioners approved Cathy Woolard, who preceded Perkins-Hooker as elections board chair, to succeed her.
Perkins-Hooker said Woolard will be sworn in at the board’s May 9 meeting, the same day Perkins-Hooker starts work for Atlanta.
