Democratic candidates for Cobb District 2 Commissioner head to a runoff 

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The special primary election on Tuesday for Cobb County Commission Districts 2 and 4 narrowed the packed field of eight candidates – four for each race – to five. It also triggered a costly primary runoff for the District 2 Democratic contenders. 

At a cost of about $910,000, the runoff will push the total cost of the special election for the two Cobb commissioner seats to $1.5 million, according to the Cobb County Elections Office. The election is being held because the county commission maps for Districts 2 and 4 were redrawn last summer to resolve a boundary-line dispute. 

In District 2, Erick Allen and Jaha Howard will face off in the Democratic primary runoff, which is scheduled for March 11. The winner will advance to the general election on April 29 against Alicia Adams, who secured the Republican nomination unopposed with 484 votes. 

Allen led the Democratic field for the District 2 primary with 1,669 votes (45.5%) – below the 50% plus one vote threshhold needed to win outright – followed closely by Howard with 1,568 votes (42.7%). Tracy Stevenson finished a distant third with 432 votes (11.8%). 

In District 4, both the Republican and Democratic primaries were decided without a runoff, so Matthew Hardwick, the Republican challenger, will face the Democratic incumbent, Monique Sheffield, on April 29. Hardwick soundly defeated Julien Grhas in the Republican primary with 70.7% of the vote (463 votes). Sheffield similarly trounced her Democratic challenger, Yashica Marshall, with 72.1% of the vote (2,927 votes).

What about ranked-choice voting, instead of runoffs?

Only 8,867 Cobb voters participated in the Democratic and Republican primaries for the two open county commission seats. That is just 3.2% of the total 278,056 registered voters in Cobb Commission Districts 2 and 4. 

And runoff elections typically attract even lower turnout. 

But lower turnout doesn’t mean it costs less to run an election, since the Cobb Elections Office must staff and operate early voting locations and then the assigned voting precincts on Election Day for all eligible voters. 

The total anticipated cost for the Feb. 11 special primary and April 29 general election was just under $625,000, according to the Cobb Elections Office. With the runoff for the District 2 Democratic primary, that cost will more than double, to just over $1.5 million. These figures cover pay for poll workers, renting polling places, supplies, absentee ballots, and postage.

One potential solution to the high cost of a runoff is ranked choice voting (RCV), because it produces a clear winner for each race. That eliminates the need for any runoffs and saves taxpayers money. 

Here’s how RCV works: Voters participating in a primary or general election rank their choices for each office in order of preference, instead of voting for a single candidate. If no candidate secures a majority in the first round of voting, the votes for the lowest polling candidate are automatically redistributed to the higher polling candidates, based on the second and third preferences of the voters who ranked the losing candidate as their first choice. This process repeats until a clear winner emerges for each race. 

RCV can make elections more efficient and cost-effective, while also encouraging candidates to broaden their appeal to a wider range of voters. The RCV movement has gained traction nationwide, with cities like Portland, Oregon and even states like Alaska adopting it as a way to simplify elections.: Over 50 election jurisdictions – cities, counties, and states –  have adopted ranked-choice voting, which collectively represent nearly 17 million people, according to FairVote. 

What’s at stake?

The elections for the District 2 and 4 seats will determine whether Democrats or Republicans gain a majority on the five-member Cobb County Commission. The commission’s countywide chair, Lisa Cupid, is a Democrat, while both District 1 Commissioner Keli Gambrill and District 3 Commissioner JoAnn K. Birrell are Republicans. 

County commissioners decide key issues such as budget priorities, tax rates, transportation, and development, so the outcome will shape the direction of Cobb County’s governance and growth.