Robert Franklin and Kwanza Hall are headed to a Dec. 1 runoff election for the right to serve roughly one month in the 5th Congressional District seat.
Franklin and Hall were the top vote-getters — each with about 29% of the vote — among seven candidates in a Sept. 29 special election to choose a temporary replacement for the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis. Franklin is a former Morehouse College president and Hall is a former Atlanta City Council member; both are Democrats. The district includes southern sections of Brookhaven and Buckhead.
Lewis, a Civil Rights icon, died July 17 in the midst of a re-election campaign. The Dec. 1 special runoff election will choose a candidate to fill his unexpired term — a brief period that will end in January.
In the Nov. 3 general election, voters will choose among different candidates to serve a full two-year term. The candidates running on the Nov. 3 ballot for the full term are Republican Angela Stanton-King and Democrat Nikema Williams.
The 5th Congressional District includes parts of DeKalb and Fulton counties, which posted election results that remain unofficial. DeKalb initially posted incomplete election results online showing zero precincts reporting, but updated the results on the morning of Sept. 30 after a Reporter inquiry.