Sheriff’s candidates make last pitch before Tuesday runoff

If all goes well Tuesday, an extended race for Muscogee County Sheriff should be decided by about 10 p.m.

That’s when election workers expect to have enough votes tallied to tell who the victor will be in the runoff between independent incumbent Sheriff John Darr and Democratic challenger Donna Tompkins, a retired sheriff’s captain.

That will mark the end of a long and sometimes confusing campaign, during which the county elections board at one point had disqualified all of Darr’s challengers for failing to meeting filing deadlines, leaving only the incumbent on the ballot.

A Superior Court judge later overturned two of those disqualifications, putting Tompkins and Republican Mark LaJoye back in the running. Two other candidates, Democrats Pam Brown and Robert Keith Smith, were unsuccessful appealing their disqualifications to another Superior Court judge.

Brown later qualified to run as a write-in candidate.

So four contenders were in the race for the Nov. 8 General Election. The official results left Tompkins with 29,866 votes to Darr’s 21,608, or 44.3 to 32 percent. With LaJoye taking 20.2 percent and Brown drawing 3.4 percent, neither of the top two had the majority needed to win outright.

That sent Darr and Tompkins into a runoff in which 3,494 Columbus residents last week voted early, an impressive turnout for a single election held over the holidays.

Thousands more are expected to vote Tuesday, when all of Muscogee County’s neighborhood voting precincts will be open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Anyone registered by the Oct. 11 deadline for the General Election is eligible to vote in the runoff, so they do not have to have voted Nov. 8. Residents unsure of their eligibility may check it through the Georgia Secretary of State’s “My Voter Page” at www.mvp.sos.ga.gov or call the local elections office at 706-653-4392.

A prominent issue in this year’s campaign has been Darr’s lawsuit against city leaders, which claims they violated Columbus’ charter by dictating his office’s budget rather than abiding by the one he submitted for council’s approval.

Tompkins, a retired sheriff’s captain, has said the lawsuit reflects Darr’s failure to deal professionally with the city. Voters must keep in mind that if he wins Tuesday, that dysfunction will continue, she said.

“I want people to consider that we’re going to have four more years of the same,” she said. That means taxpayers will continue to fund the litigation, paying both Darr’s attorney fees and the city’s.

“It’s going to keep on,” she said, that’s not good for the community or the taxpayers. “The people of Muscogee County deserve better than this.”

She has pledged to institute financial accountability to keep the office’s operations within the budget approved by council, and to restore trust between the sheriff and city leaders.

“I’m ready to go to work,” she said, noting her years of experience in the office.

Darr has been Muscogee’s sheriff since 2008, when as a Democrat he defeated incumbent Ralph Johnson, an independent. Darr became an independent after Brown nearly unseated him in the Democratic Primary in 2012, when a recount showed she lost by about 60 votes out of more than 17,000.

The sheriff oversees the county jail, and Darr has said he must have the funding needed to deal with “the rising cost of health care and pharmaceuticals, which must be provided to inmates by state law.”

More than 70 percent of jail inmates need prescription medications, he said, and his staff provides those at the least expense possible.

Darr last week recommended voters visit his website sheriffjohndarr.com to review his accomplishments since he took office in 2009. Among the those cited there are the Rising Star program that honors local scholars, Project HomeSafe that gives away gunlocks, and the National Take Back Initiative to collect and dispose of unused prescription drugs.

Darr’s administration also has established specialized dorms in the jail, such as a veterans dorm, fatherhood dorm and mental health dorm.

This story was originally published December 5, 2016 at 12:24 PM with the headline "Sheriff’s candidates make last pitch before Tuesday runoff."