Reed Certified as Winner of Atlanta Mayoral Election

Reed Certified as Winner of Atlanta Mayoral Election

By AFRO Staff


(December 6, 2009) - An Atlanta elections board has certified former state senator Kasim Reed as the winner of the city’s Dec. 1 runoff mayoral election.

A spokesman for Reed said the candidate received 50.4 percent of the 84,383 votes cast in the election. According to a CNN report, election officials said Reed held a 620-vote lead over his opponent, city councilwoman Mary Norwood. The Dec. 1 runoff election was held following November’s general election.

According to Bloomberg News, Norwood said she would ask for a recount. However, under state law, a recount is automatic when a margin of victory is less than one percent.

Both candidates waged a hard-fought battle across the city and over the airwaves in the month gearing up to the runoff election. Both also sought racial crossover votes in the majority-Black city. Norwood attempted to become Atlanta’s first White mayor in more than three decades.

Reed, 40, will be the fifth consecutive Black mayor of Atlanta, and will serve until 2014. Reed served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 1999 to 2003, and in that state’s Senate from 2003 until September of this year, when he resigned to run for mayor.

According to Bloomberg News, both candidates have pledged to restore city services which were cut this year in an effort to make up a $140 million shortfall in the city’s budget.