Fayette County election officials are gearing up for what is expected to be a heavy turnout in a highly anticipated election Tuesday.
As of Friday, a little more than 1,000 residents in District 5 had cast early votes in the special election to pick a successor for the late commissioner Pota Coston, elections supervisor Tom Sawyer told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Monday.
“I’m told a lot of people are really gearing up to come to the polls (Tuesday),” Sawyer said.
Only voters in District 5, which covers most of the northern part of Fayette, can vote in Tuesday's election. Nonetheless, it has become a closely-watched race as the county continues to fight for at-large or countywide voting to elect its leaders.
Last November, Coston became the first black person elected to the county commission after a federal judge ordered the county to use district voting. The ruling led to the creation of the mostly-black District 5. Democratic challenger Coston beat incumbent Republican Allen McCarty. She got 2,716 - or 67 percent - of the 4,332 votes cast.
The county appealed the judge's decision and an appeals court sent the case back to the lower court for a trial. The NAACP and a group of black residents sued the county in 2011 over its voting system saying it was discriminatory and kept blacks from serving in countywide offices.
Fayette County officials argue that, while Fayette has a large number of black residents in the northeastern part of the county, they are not a majority and thus not large enough to create a mostly minority district without gerrymandering.
Coston died July 3. Her vacant seat has drawn three candidates: Republican Angela Bean, a 58-year-old independent contractor in the graphic arts field; RepublicanPeyton Riley, 48, who sells insurance and investments and Democrat Charles Rousseau, a 54-year-old retired executive with Fulton County government. Voters can cast ballots at nine precincts between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Tuesday.
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