District 30 Race To Be Decided Today

The 2012 election season will finally end today as voters in parts of three counties, including Paulding, weigh in on a state senate race that has spanned since late last year.

Registered voters in Senate District 30 will have the chance to choose between Libertarian candidate James Camp and Republican candidate Mike Dugan. The winner will then look forward to next week as the 2013 Georgia General Assembly gets under way.

Camp lives just outside of Temple has been employed as a senior IT technician for the past five years with a small IT consulting firm in Carrollton, according to his website. Dugan is a 20-year Army veteran and local building contractor, according to his website.

Related news: Meet Your Candidates: Senate District 30

Helping to decide today’s race will be the Paulding voters who cast ballots at four polling places—the Taylor Farm Park, Nebo Elementary, Austin Middle and Carl Scoggins Middle precincts. The polling places will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

In addition to a southern portion of Paulding County, District 30 includes most of Carroll County and a western portion of Douglas County.

Today’s special election is in part a result of two elections from late last year. Dugan and Bill Hembree were the top two vote-getters in a Nov. 6 special election to determine who would replace Bill Hamrick on the GOP ticket after Hamrick was tapped by Gov. Nathan Deal to serve as superior court judge. Hembree earned the most votes in that four-man race, which also included Glenn Richardson and Jim Naughton, but was short the half-plus-one share of the vote needed to avoid the runoff against Dugan, his closest opponent.

But Dugan topped Hembree, formerly the State House representative from District 67, in a Dec. 4 runoff. Dugan’s win put him in today’s race against Camp, the sole Libertarian candidate to qualify. No Democrats qualified for the seat.

Return to Dallas-Hiram Patch for further election coverage.

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