Harry James turns in signatures for commission run

ALBANY — Harry James didn’t hesitate in his response to the would-be voter’s question: What are you going to do about the racism problem we have in this community?

“We don’t have a racism problem in Dougherty County,” James responded. “We have a leadership problem.”

That, the former District 5 county commissioner said, is what led him to challenge Dougherty Commission Chairman Chris Cohilas for Cohilas’ seat.

James turned in 2,981 signatures at the Dougherty Elections office Tuesday, signatures that, if verified by Elections personnel, will allow him to challenge Cohilas in the Nov. 6 general election.

James, who announced his intention to seek the seat held by Cohilas for the past four years during qualifying, is seeking the office as an independent candidate. He was required to collect signatures from registered voters that amount to 5 percent of the total number of voters who cast ballots in the last commission chairmanship election.

That total, Elections officials confirmed, is 2,524.

“Government needs to be more transparent, our citizens more informed,” James said after turning in the signatures at the Elections office on the final day they could be accepted. “Certainly we need to focus on the issues that impact our community — economic impact, crime, poverty, the things that make Dougherty County less attractive to businesses than it’s been in the past.

“But we also have a problem of leadership in our county government. I believe that every vote counts and every citizen counts. I’m in this to win it, and I feel that my chances are great.”

James served two years on the County Commission as the representative of District 5. He was the lone qualifying candidate in a special election called when then-District 5 Commissioner Gloria Gaines stepped down from her position for an unsuccessful run at the commission chairmanship four years ago.

Gaines reclaimed the seat in 2016.

James said he took the unusual route to the general election for a calculated reason.

“It’s true, I did not want to get caught up in the issues that were circling around the local Democratic Party at the time,” James said of the Dougherty Democratic Party’s losing the authority to qualify candidates. “But after vetting and doing research, I saw that it has become difficult for African-American candidates to come out of the process and make it on the November ballot. And making it onto the ballot in November provides a greater opportunity for victory.

“I think I made the right decision because, once these signatures are verified, I will be on the ballot. And I am not looking at myself as a long shot. In the process of collecting these signatures, I have gotten encouragement and support from all sections of Dougherty County.”

Dougherty Elections Supervisor Ginger Nickerson said the state does not set a date to have the signatures verified, but she has set a self-imposed Aug. 17 deadline.

“The ballot-builder said we have to have the names that go on the ballot to him by Sept. 3, so we set a deadline in our office to have these signatures certified by Aug. 17,” Nickerson said. “We’ll have to bring in additional staff because this is a painstaking process. We have to match the signatures on the petition to the signatures of the voters we have on file.

“We’ve checked with the secretary of state’s office, and this is really a new process for them. They said they don’t have a deadline, but we’re working under our own deadline.”

James said that the instructions he received from the secretary of state’s office presented a problem for some among his team collecting signatures.

“The form requires specific Personally Identifiable Information that pretty much gives two-thirds of the things needed to steal someone’s identity,” James said. “We had people tell us they’d be glad to sign the petition to help me get on the ballot, but they didn’t want to give out personal information. I understand that, so I sent a letter to the secretary of state’s office, not as a complaint but suggesting that the requirements be updated to make people a little more comfortable about supporting an independent candidate.”

Nickerson said she was not aware of such potentially sensitive requirements but would research it.

James said he was encouraged by the responses he got from the “churches, parking lots, going door-to-door and all other grassroot methods” he utilized to collect some 457 more signatures than required.

“There were a lot of people throughout the county who said they were concerned about some of the processes the county is going through right now,” he said. “A lot of people thanked me for answering questions they had about the things that concern them.

“One of the things I told them is that the current chairman was there before I got on the commission, during my time on the commission, and he’s been there after my time on the commission. You can look at some of the things that have happened — or have not happened — in the time since I’ve been on there, and it points to a leadership problem.”

The general election will be held Nov. 6.