Jessica Payton will look to re-qualify to retain her seat after bounced check causes rare election issue

Commissioner Jessica Payton will be required to re-qualify in order to retain her seat after a check she wrote for her fee to get onto the ballot was rejected, requiring a special election to be held in November just for her seat.

Qualifying for this special election will occur next Wednesday, Sept. 15 through noon Friday, Sept. 17, will be open to those who can meet the requirements to qualify and pay a $54 fee.

The need to open qualifying for this one-time special election occurred when a check that Commissioner Jessica Payton wrote to qualify to keep her seat back in August. That check bounced when the county tried to cash it when, as she explained, her account didn’t have enough funds to process the check more than a week and a half after she qualified for the seat was cashed by Polk County.

Because state law is clear about the rejection of qualifying fees being an immediate disqualifier for candidates and the ballot was just about set, it forced the Board of Elections to open qualifying for a special election for Payton’s seat.

Payton is not allowed to simply resubmit a check for the initial fee and retain her position on the ballot because it bounced, but is able to retain her office via the special election being held on the same ballot for Nov. 2 for Cedartown voters.

Since qualifying had already ended for the Cedartown Commission in August, and the procedural issues involved, Payton is not allowed to stay in the normal vote in which she and Commissioners Matt Foster and Sam Branch faced no opposition.

Payton provided the following statement about the issue to Polk.Today:

Due to a banking error – absolutely on my part in setting the date for a portion of my daughter’s college tuition to be withdrawn – I was left with insufficient funds on the day my check for qualification to run for city commission attempted to clear.

According to Georgia law, this disqualifies me from being able to run in the November General Election for Cedartown City Commission. 

Despite having funds available on the day I qualified, the end of qualification, during the week after qualification, as well as the day before, and the day after the check attempted to clear, the one day the check attempted to clear, I had insufficient funds. As soon as I saw the check had not cleared, I immediately contacted the Board of Elections. 

This turns out to be an unprecedented situation in that my candidacy was unopposed and my bank account was before and is now in good standing. Georgia state law is clear that if a check fails to clear, the candidate is disqualified. There are no gray areas here.  

I appreciate the understanding and efforts of the City of Cedartown, the Polk County Board of Elections, Polk County, and USAA in working to find the legal and ethical solution for this situation. 

As such, I will be requalifying for a Special Election to be held on the same day as the General Election. 

The Polk County Board of Elections will call a special session on Monday morning at 9 a.m. to further explain the procedure involved in this rare incident.

So rare that as far as Elections Director Brande Coggins’ best information she has available as of this posting, this has never happened in a locally-run Georgia election before.

She added that despite this unexpected issue with the 2021 ballot, everything is set to be ready in time for voters to cast their ballot early in October three weeks ahead of the November 2 election.

Check back for more on this story as it develops.