State Rep. Trey Kelley to retain seat for two more years after primary win

The preliminary tallies came in after hours of wait at the Board of Elections office this evening, and they made the voice of the people clear: the incumbents will keep their seats, with the exception of the Tallapoosa Circuit Superior Court.

In a victory in both Haralson and Polk County precincts, local Judge Andrew Roper will be taking over the Tallapoosa Circuit Superior Court seat come January after primary tallies went his way across the circuit this evening. He won out in Judge Meng Lim’s home county of Haralson with exception of Bremen, where Lim took a 55-44% victory in his hometown.

Roper, who said he remained busy over the past three months campaigning for the job after he waited for returns at the Polk County Administration building this evening, was excited after Polk County figures were finally released on paper by the Board of Elections and saw his election win was secured.

“It has been very long, and we have worked very hard. I’m very appreciative of the voters coming out to take part today,” Roper said after results were announced in Polk that cemented his election win. “I’m going to sleep a little while, I can tell you that. We’ve busted it for three long months every single day,… But I’m ready to get to work.”

Roper took a 61 to 39% victory over Lim (6,606 to 4,207 ballots cast in preliminary figures.)

Other figures were on hand this evening as well: local candidates for the Commission race including incumbents Linda Liles, Gary Martin and Hal Floyd. All three saw wins to retain their seats for new four year terms tonight as well. Martin took a victory over James Vines in a 76.56-23.44% victory in the District 1 primary, winning 4,924 to 1,507 votes to secure his seat this evening.

Floyd also won out over challenger Jeff Hawkins in the District 3 race. The Commission Chair took a 66.33 to 33.67% win over the challenger (4,263 votes to 2,164) in the primary race.

One of the races that potentially could have headed locally to a run-off was the challenge to Commissioner Linda Liles’ seat in District 2. The four-way primary to retain her seat saw her take a 55.34% win over the rest of the field with the preliminary results, or 3,551 votes cast in her favor. Challenger Glenn Robinson was the closest with 1,904 votes going to him in the primary, or 29.67%. Ricky Clark finished with 664 votes, and Perry Barrett finished with 297 ballots in the race tonight.

The other race to watch locally was the State House District 16 primary challenge to State Rep. Trey Kelley by Scott Richards. Kelley took a victory in the race 5,657 to 3,555, winning not only within Polk County but in the precincts in Paulding where Richards was expected to have a greater base of support.

Kelley will head into January without a challenger – unless someone gets enough voters to sign petitions to get on the ballot districtwide as an independent candidate for the November ballot.

He’ll head into a new two-year term in January 2023 otherwise without competition.

Kelley additionally stopped into the Board of Elections locally to check in on returns, but didn’t stay before the Elections Director Noah Beck came out to explain the process of releasing numbers after precincts had reported into the office with their ballots.

He additionally said the tallies could change, and figures that were reported only on paper so far are preliminary. Figures shouldn’t change too much, since only around 250 mail in ballots were returned to the Board of Elections for the primary. Out of those, Beck reported that 25 required further adjudication to determine the intent of voters, as issues were raised with whether boxes were checked correctly.