By TaRessa Stovall

The subtext of Atlanta’s recent mayoral race throbbed with dramatic tension. Would the increasingly diverse metropolis known variously as the Black Mecca and the City Too Busy to Hate elect its first white mayor in 36 years?  Who would voters like best: the white City Councilwoman with strong support from the business community, or the black state Senator with the civil rights and hip-hop leaders on his side?

After Mary Norwood and Kasim Reed emerged from the November 3 primary election to duke it out for the top seat, the nation’s eyes were riveted. The Christian Science Monitor reported on November 4 that, “Some analysts have said the potential election of front-runner Mary Norwood as the city’s first white mayor in 36 years would prove that America is undergoing a generational shift toward colorblind politics. Others saw the struggle for traction by African-American ‘card carrying Democrats’ in a liberal, majority-black city as a sign that Mr. Obama’s coattails have proven woefully short.”

In a pre-election story for TheDefendersOnline, Atlantan Mark Lassiter provided an historic context by describing the quartet of African-American mayors who have made the Atlanta brand what it is today.

On December 1, in a contest described in the media as “one of the tightest political contests in decades,” 30 percent of Atlanta voters elected Reed, 40, as the city’s sixth consecutive African-American mayor since the late Maynard Jackson made history as the first African-American to lead a major Southern city in 1973.

But the contest did not end there. Though Reed won 620 more votes, with 99 percent of voting precincts reporting, as the Associated Press reported in the December 2 story, Atlanta Mayor’s Race Too Close to Call, that “city councilwoman Mary Norwood told supporters that she was not conceding and was open to a recount. Under Georgia law, the runner-up can petition for one when the margin of victory is less than 1 percent of the total vote. Voters cast 84,076 ballots, so the margin would be within the percentage.” Georgia State law allows a candidate who finished within 1 percent of the winning candidate to request a recount.

Reed held his lead after provisional ballots—those given to people whose voter registration status is in dispute—were counted by Fulton County officials, which boosted  his lead by 0.84 percent, or 715 votes. Norwood “will be asking for a recount,” her campaign manager, Roman Levit, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The group, Citizens for Fair Atlanta Elections, filed a separate complaint with the Georgia Secretary of State’s office which claims people voted in the election from “non-existent addresses,” CNN reported on December 8.

Meanwhile, Reed moved forward on his campaign priorities—tacking gangs, growing public safety and city services, and assembling a group to advise him on cutting pensions costs, which he has called “the biggest threat to the city.”

On Wednesday, December 9, it was announced that the recount, which added one vote to Norwood’s total, reaffirmed Reed’s victory. Later that day, Citizens for Fair Atlanta Elections said they had been mistaken in alleging the voting fraud. “I acknowledge we had a huge misunderstanding about the data we were working with,” co-chair Erica Long, a Norwood supporter, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

According to Reuters: “Voting mirrored Atlanta’s demographics, with Reed running up big numbers in the south and west, which are majority black and include some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Norwood’s support base was in mainly white northern council districts, which include some of the city’s richest suburbs. Like many U.S. cities, Atlanta’s metropolitan area spreads far beyond the city limits. Both candidates avoided playing up race during the campaign, instead presenting themselves as outsiders best qualified to restore city finances and fight rising crime.”

Under the headline, “New Dawn for Atlanta,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said that Norwood “officially conceded about 90 minutes after the results were posted. An hour later, the new mayor-elect said it ‘feels good’ to have the election resolved. Reed called it a ‘tough campaign…You should have to go through (this process)…if you want to lead a major American city,’ he said.”

TaRessa Stovall is Managing Editor of TheDefendersOnline.