Commission candidate endorses ex-opponent

A few days after vowing to ask the GBI to investigate “irregularities” in last month’s primary election, a losing Dekalb County commission candidate has endorsed one of his former opponents in the upcoming runoff.

Marshall Orson’s endorsement of Lauren Alexander, one of two candidates who will vie for the District 2 commission seat in a June 21 runoff, was announced Monday morning.

“Lauren is the candidate who has the temperament, values and integrity that we need in that position,” Orson’s statement said. It went on to describe Alexander as having integrity, compassion and an “inclusive, progressive approach” to problem solving.

Orson is a longtime Dekalb school board member who attempted to make the jump to the county government. He ultimately finished third in the race to represent the commission district that covers parts of the Decatur, Brookhaven and Atlanta areas in northwest Dekalb.

But the path to those results — which were certified by the local elections board Friday night — was more than a little eventful.

Unofficial preliminary results posted shortly after the May 24 primary showed Orson leading the three-way race and seemingly headed to a runoff with Alexander. Michelle Long Spears was in third place.

Spears and her campaign, though, soon noticed she’d received zero election day votes in all but a few precincts. The secretary of state’s office then admitted that a series of voting machine programming errors had created an erroneous count.

Dekalb elections officials then conducted a three-day hand count of all ballots cast in the District 2 race.

That produced an altogether different outcome: Spears had the most votes and was headed to a runoff with Alexander. Orson was in third and out of luck.

After those results were certified last week, Orson said he would “request that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation intervene pursuant to the recent Georgia statute giving them the authority and obligation to investigate election irregularities.” But he said he wouldn’t be taking further legal recourse to challenge the results on his own behalf.