Officials will recount last week's election results for City Council races in Atlanta and Roswell, and they will add some Atlanta residents to the city rolls who were denied the right to vote.
On Tuesday, Fulton County officials will count the votes in the six-way race for Atlanta's District 6 seat on the council. The latest results show Liz Coyle finished 65 votes ahead of Tad Christian for second place and a spot in the Dec. 1 runoff with first-place finisher Alex Wan. Christian requested the recount. Coyle had 22.84 percent of the vote while Christian had 22.16 percent. Wan had 32.2 percent of the vote.
Georgia rules require a candidate to capture more than 50 percent of the vote to win the election.
In Roswell, City Council candidate Jim Pollak lost by 13 votes. After the vote was certified Saturday, incumbent Kent Igleheart beat Pollak 4,879 to 4,866.
“When it’s that close, I wouldn’t be responsible and honest with myself if I didn’t ask for a recount,” Pollak said.
Atlanta City Council President candidate Ceasar Mitchell said Monday he'll ask county officials to review complaints from residents in recently incorporated portions of south Fulton County that election workers told them they weren’t on the voter rolls and couldn't cast their ballots on Nov. 3.
Mitchell, a two-term city councilman, won nearly 49 percent of the approximately 68,000 votes cast last week in the three-way race. He needed about 800 more votes to win outright.
"My request is only an attempt to maintain the integrity and sanctity of our electoral process," Mitchell said.
Fulton officials said Monday they would include 94 residents on the city voter rolls who were erroneously listed last week as not residing in Atlanta. The residents live in an area annexed into Atlanta in 2006 and 2007.
Mitchell is in a Dec. 1 runoff with Councilwoman Clair Muller. Mitchell said he’s not counting on the review to give him the victory. He urged supporters to return to the polls on Dec. 1, noting that many people mistakenly believe he won last week.
“Our quest...is not yet over,” Mitchell said.
Muller, who won nearly 42 percent of the vote last week, called Mitchell's desire for a review "a publicity stunt" to call attention to his campaign.
Staff writer Ralph Ellis contributed to this article.
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