Three Races To Be Decided Today

Today is county voters’ last chance to weigh in on unfinished business in the Republican primary.

Three offices that impact Paulding County will have their contests decided by runoffs. They are:

• Paulding County’s chief magistrate. Incumbent Martin Valbuena was favored by 47.1 percent of those who voted in the July 31 primary. His opponent is Dan Collins, the top vote-getter among three men who challenged Valbuena. (See videos of the chief magistrate candidates and .)
• State Senate District 31. State Sen. Bill Heath will again square off against Bill Carruth. Voters in Paulding, Haralson and Polk counties gave more favor to Heath in the primary, but his 45.3-percent share of the vote was not enough to stave off the runoff against Carruth, who earned 41.1 percent of votes.
• State House District 66. The new district includes only one Paulding precinct, and more than half of the voters who came out to that polling place favored Bob Snelling. But Snelling overall had 49.6 percent of the vote; his two opponents, Michael “Mike” Miller and Mickey Thompson, took 27.2 and 23.2 percent, respectively. Miller’s second-place finish put him in the runoff with Snelling. (See video of all three candidates and .)

The winners of the chief magistrate and Senate District 31 races will be set to take office in January, as no Democrats nor independent candidates qualified to run. The winner of the House District 66 contest will move on to face Kimberly Alexander, a Democrat from Dallas, in November’s general election.

All Paulding County polling precincts will be open today from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Voters eligible to cast ballots in the runoff will have to visit their usual polling place to vote.

Only those county voters who cast Republican or nonpartisan ballots in the July primary, or those who did not vote at all in the primary, are eligible to vote.

All county voters will see the chief magistrate race on their ballots, but only those in the legislative districts under a runoff will cast ballots in those races.

Return to Dallas-Hiram Patch tonight for live results of the races.

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