Greg Cannon will remain on the Henry County Board of Commissioners at least 18 more months.
The District 3 incumbent dominated the June 15 special election with 72 percent of the vote against two challengers. With all precincts reporting, Cannon secured 3,385 votes to finish far ahead of Sarita Dyer (1,136) and Briana Clay (165).
Cannon ran as a Republican while Dyer and Clay ran as Democrats. But the special election grouped all three of them together for this special election.
Interestingly, the number of overall voters was split almost evenly between those who voted ahead of time and those who waited until Election Day. The report from the county election office showed 2,327 coming to the polls during early voting and 90 voting absentee by mail. The 11 voting precincts in District 3 reported 2,278 casting their ballots on Election Day.
Likewise, Cannon’s vote tally was split down the middle, with 1,662 early voters, 65 by mail and 1,658 Election Day votes.
In all, 4,695 votes were cast in this race out of 38,286 registered voters in District 3. that is a turnout rate of 12.26 percent.
Cannon was appointed to the District 3 seat by board chair Carlotta Harrell in early April to serve until the special election. His predecessor, Gary Barham, served just over eight years after winning elections in 2012, 2014 and 2018. He became ill in mid-February and died March 2.
During the three weeks Barham was hospitalized in critical condition, the Georgia General Assembly moved quickly to pass Senate Bill 22, which would guarantee that the commissioners appoint a Republican to eventually fill the seat, as that was Barham’s party affiliation. Upon his death the county GOP submitted three names as instructed by the legislation, but most of the Democrat majority on the board chose not to take any action, some saying publicly that they wanted to wait for the June 15 special election to fill the seat. That led to the passage of Senate Bill 306 at the end of March, giving Harrell the sole authority to make the appointment.
The next regular election for Cannon’s seat is in the fall of 2022.
