 Former state representative Deborah Gonzalez and assistant DA Brian Patterson have been running for district attorney of Athens-Clark and Oconee Countings for several months. But the election was upended recently with the resignation of Ken Maldon. Maldon has been DA here since 2001, but suddenly resigned a couple weeks ago without much explanation. This resignation has huge political implications. First, the Democratic primary that Deborah and Brian were both running in has been cancelled. It's over. Brian Patterson has been named interim DA, and he may serve at least through January, if not for another two entire years. How is that possible? Isn't there an election still scheduled for November? Not necessarily. An anti-democratic law passed just a couple years ago in 2018 allows the governor to cancel elections for district attorney in the case of a resignation. If he appoints someone over six months from an election, everything is fine and the election will proceed as normal. If he chooses to wait until after the six month cutoff, then the entire election is cancelled. A petition went up quickly when all this came to light, asking the governor to appoint the new DA before May 3rd and allow an election this November. It now has over 1,500 signatures. Erin Stacer, president of Athens for Everyone, and Tim Denson, ACC commissioner, organized a carpool to deliver this petition on February 18th. So we're about to go in and request. I get that. After delivering the petitions, we saw district 119 representative Marcus Weidauer in the hallway. So we were able to still have the election tonight. I'm 100% behind that. I think the voters need to decide, so I hope he makes the appointment. We were also able to briefly speak with district 117 representative Houston Gaines. Do you support that? Yeah, I mean I think having elections is always good. So you would think it's egregious that there would not be a November election? I mean I think there should be a election. Okay. We just came out of the Capitol speaking to district representatives who represent parts of Clark County and Oconee County. And both that we spoke to, Representative Weidauer, Representative Gaines, both agreed that an election is the best way to move forward here. The voters of Athens need to be able to keep their ability to elect our elected officials. It's that simple. In particular, the DA, the district attorney, has a lot of power. They get to decide who to prosecute and with which charges to prosecute them. Without holding them accountable, our criminal justice system can go terribly awry. They should not be dropped in by decree of the governor using a loophole in a law and bypassing the will of the citizens. The ultimate of voter suppression is not having the election to begin with. Let Governor Kemp know your opinion. You can contact him at gov.georgia.gov.contact-us. You can also sign the petition because there might be a second delivery. I'll put the link in the description. Thanks for watching.