School Board Incumbent Paul Womack Set for Runoff

Three contenders were vying to unseat District 4 incumbent Paul Womack in Tuesday's election for the DeKalb County Board of Education, but it looks like a runoff in three weeks will decide the issue.

Womack, who was first elected in 1981, received 6,705 votes and 46.60% percent, compared to his closest challenger Jim McMahan, who received 4,019 votes.

All 189 precincts have reported, and early, in-person votes have also been counted. The Board of Elections has started the process of counting more than 5,000 absentee-by-mail ballots.

Speaking to Patch after the results came in, Womack said, "Well, there's going to be a runoff. On the whole, people sort of voted for 'out with the old, in with the new'." 

He also faced challenges from Tom Gilbert and Jim Kinney.

Gilbert is a Home Depot employee with two grandchildren in the county system, and Kinney is a Linux Systems Engineer for IBM Security Solutions with a long history of involvement in DeKalb's schools. 

McMahan, a mortgage loan specialist who has children at Henderson Middle and Sagamore Elementary, also spoke to Patch after hearing the results. "Today, more than half of the voters in our district voted against a dismal status quo on the DeKalb School Board that has been failing our students, our teachers and all taxpayers," he said. "In three weeks, I look forward to giving all voters a voice to restore our school system to greatness and smart fiscal management."