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June 2016, Vol. 10, No.6 Subscribe | Past issues | Advertise | eMagazine Archives

Primary Election Results for Georgia County Government

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By the Numbers: Primary Election Results for Georgia County Government

The general primary election for Georgia, held on Tuesday, May 24, 2016, included 465 county commissioner positions for 155 counties. The results of these elections can be found on the Secretary of State’s website at http://sos.ga.gov/. Instructions on how to access this information was provided in last month’s newsletter in County Election Results at Your Fingertips: How to Navigate the State Elections Website.

Georgia has a total of 816 county commissioner positions statewide. In this election cycle, 465 (57 percent) of these positions were up for election including 374 incumbents and 91 open seats. Of those commissioners who were eligible for re-election, 89 did not seek to run for another term for their respective seat. There were also two special elections for commissioners, rounding out the total number of open elections to 91. The composition of incumbents seeking re-election included 136 democratic candidates, 212 republican candidates and 26 nonpartisan candidates.

For the 374 races with incumbents, 177 (47.33 percent) did not have any opposition and 96 (25.67 percent) won their primary election and do not have general opposition. Therefore, unless an independent candidate qualifies to run against one of these commissioners in the November general election, 273 sitting commissioners should be returning to office. Of the incumbents running for re-election, 30 (8.02 percent) were defeated. There are a total of 18 runoff elections involving an incumbent (4.81 percent) and 14 runoff elections involving non-incumbents. The runoff election will be held on July 26, 2016. There are 53 incumbents who will face general election opposition on November 22, 2016. Of these 53 incumbents, 45 (12.03 percent) had no primary opposition and 8 (2.14 percent) had primary opposition.



  • As of the date of this article, not every county’s results have been certified by the Secretary of State’s Office. As such, the information contained within reflects the information that was available at the time of publication and may change upon certification.
  • Seven commissioners who were up for re-election chose to run for chairman instead of their current seat.
  • Qualifying for independent candidates is scheduled for June 27, 2016 through July 1, 2016.
  • The eight commissioners who have both primary and general opposition won their primary races. Incumbents who had both primary and general opposition, but who did not win their primary are not included in this count.

In addition to county commissioner races, there were 35 referendum questions impacting counties on ballots throughout the state. All 35 measures passed. Of these referendum questions, there were 16 Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (ESPLOST), 12 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST), 5 alcohol related, 1 bond package and 1 homestead exemption.

Mauldin & Jenkins
ACCG, Georgia's County Association
191 Peachtree Street NE, Suite 700
Atlanta, GA 30303
phone: 404-522-5022 | fax: 404-525-2477 | ACCG.org