This week’s Atlanta City Council meeting erupted into angry accusations of personal vendettas during a lengthy debate over when the qualifying period should be for a special election.
When Keisha Sean Waites resigned from her Post 3 At-Large seat on March 8 to qualify to run for Fulton County Clerk of Superior and Magistrate Courts, the council was faced with picking a date for a special election to fill the citywide seat. The council also had to choose the dates when candidates could qualify.
The Nov. 5 general election is the earliest date to hold a special election to fill the vacant council seat, according to Georgia law. The council agreed to Nov. 5 date and eventually, in a 9-3 vote, to the resolution setting qualifying from June 25-27. Councilmember Michael Julian Bond, Andrea Boone and Antonio Lewis voted against the resolution. Councilmember Amir Farokhi and Mary Norwood were not in attendance at the meeting.
Waites was elected in 2021 and her term would have officially ended the end of December 2025. Because there is more than one year remaining in her term, the council cannot legally appoint someone to fill the seat. Members expressed it was unfortunate constituents in would be without a voting representative for roughly eight months.
“We find ourselves in a situation that that we didn’t ask for,” said Councilmember Marcia Collier Overstreet. “I think this is a long time for this seat to be empty in the first place. I just want the position field because we found ourselves in a terrible situation of having an empty post.”
The legislation proposed at the March 18 council meeting recommended the qualifying period be May 14-16.
Councilmembers Boone and Bond both argued the city’s tradition is for qualifying for a November election is August. Requiring candidates to qualify five or so months before the election would likely reduce the number of potential candidates, the argued. It would also prevent Waites from qualifying to run for her seat again if she were to lose the clerk’s race.
“I would like to say that I really don’t know whose grand idea this was, but this is very bad. This is very bad,” Boone said. “Whatever the reasoning was, for moving this up five to six months, the public and those ready and willing to run for office should be outraged.”
Bond made a motion to move the qualifying period August that failed. He then made a motion to hold qualifying July 22 – 26. Councilmember Alex Wan commented that it appeared that his colleague picked the July dates by “throwing a dart at a calendar.”
Bond, visibly angered by Wan’s accusation, responded that the May qualifying dates were designed to keep Waites from being able to run again for the council seat should she lose her bid for Fulton County Clerk.
“It is a poison dart aimed at a colleague who resigned and a not-so-underhanded effort to prevent that person from seeking office again, within this calendar year,” Bond said.
An emotional Bond then began shouting at Wan, claiming the legislation was a “personal vendetta” against Waites made by people who had personal conflicts with her.
Bond said he had seen all kinds of battles between members during his many years on the council, but had never seen “people get down in the mud on the worst most juvenile, petty issues.”
Councilmember Matt Westmoreland finally made the motion to hold qualifying June 25-27, which passed in the 9-3 vote.
The original legislation coming out of the finance committee stated qualifying would be June 25-27. The Committee on Council, in its meeting held a few hours before the full council, voted to change the qualifying dates to May 14-16.
Councilmember Liliana Bakhtiari, chair of the Committee on Council, said the decision to move up the qualifying period was to give voters more time to get to know the candidates. An earlier qualifying period also gives organizations concerned about housing, transit, and other city issues more time to vet the candidates.
“The motivating factor behind an earlier qualifying period had nothing to do with keeping a person that has run many times in her career from running again,” Bakhtiari told Rough Draft.
Waites told Rough Draft she did not want to seek a City Council seat again.
“I have no interest in that whatsoever,” Waites said. “I’m not interested in returning to the City Council.”
State law requires an elected official to resign from their post when they qualify to run for another seat. Waites said she decided to run for Fulton County Clerk of Superior and Magistrate Courts last year after the clerk’s office accidentally posted “a sample document” of former President Donald Trump’s indictment in Georgia hours before the formal indictment was filed.
Waites said she asked the city’s legal department months ago to hold the special election to fill her seat on May 21. Waites said the legal department told her she would have to resign by Feb. 12 for a May 21 special election.
Waites said she did not resign by that date because she still had business before the council.
Waites, a Democrat, has run for several state and and county races over the past 20 years, including unsuccessful bids for Atlanta City Council in 2001, 2005, and 2009.
Previously, Waites won a special election in 2012 for the state House District 60 seat, representing an area around East Point, Hapeville, and southeast Atlanta. She resigned from that seat in 2017 to run for Fulton County chairperson but lost in a runoff to incumbent Robb Pitts.
This story has been updated.