Reply #2: GA: Once low-key secretary of state post drawing crowded field [View All]

[rumpel]

Gwinnett Daily Post

07/14/2006

By Dave Williams
Staff Writer
[e-mail]

ATLANTA - Politicians weren't much interested in becoming Georgia's secretary of state in 1998, even though the job was open and there for the taking.
Only two Republicans sought the post in that summer's primary, while the eventual winner, Cathy Cox, captured the Democratic nomination unopposed.
But that was before "hanging chads'' on ballots in Florida delayed the outcome of the 2000 presidential election for six weeks, a debacle that prompted neighboring Georgia to become the first state to embrace electronic voting.
And before legislative Republicans pushed through the General Assembly a controversial requirement that voters show a photo ID at the polls.
This summer, with Cox's decision to run for governor leaving the seat vacant again, secretary of state suddenly is a hot commodity. Six Democrats and four Republicans are competing for their respective party nominations in the July 18 primaries, virtually assuring an Aug. 8 runoff on the Democratic side and making an extra round a distinct possibility for the GOP.
"It's become a higher profile office,'' said state Sen. Bill Stephens of Canton, one of the Republican hopefuls.
Stephens shares the GOP field with Fulton County Commission Chairman Karen Handel, Charlie Bailey - who has run for secretary of state twice previously - and businessman Eric Martin.

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