In Bulloch County, the State Court judgeship, three seats on the Board of Commissioners and four seats on the Board of Education are up for election at the local level this year. Candidates need to qualify next week to appear on a ballot for the May 19 party primaries and nonpartisan general election.
It is a gubernatorial election year, so all of Georgia’s elected state executive posts – governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, agriculture commissioner, insurance commissioner, labor commissioner and state school superintendent – are up for election. So are all seats in the Georgia House of Representatives and Senate, as well as the U.S. House and one of Georgia’s U.S. Senate seats. Those candidates qualify in Atlanta.
But 2026 is a midterm year at the county level, where candidates qualify locally for the few available seats.
The full hours for qualifying are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday, March 2 through Thursday, March 5, and then 9 a.m.-noon Friday, March 6, with noon that Friday being the statewide deadline.
Where to qualify
In Bulloch County, exactly where candidates qualify depends on whether they are seeking a partisan office or a nonpartisan office.
Only candidates for nonpartisan offices – in 2026 only those for State Court judge and Board of Education – will complete their paperwork and pay their candidate fees directly with the Board of Elections and Registration office at the County Annex, 113 North Main St., Suite 201, where Elections Supervisor Shontay Jones is in charge.
But the county commissioners identify with political parties – all are currently Democrats or Republicans – and candidates for these seats qualify with the local party committees.
“Our office, specifically, we do all the qualifying for nonpartisan seats, so that’s my only qualifying group, anybody that is nonpartisan,” Jones said in January. “When I came aboard the decision was made that the local parties will qualify their own candidates that are, you know, declaring for a particular party.”
State Court judge
Among the candidates who will qualify with Jones at the Board of Elections office are any seeking the Bulloch County State Court judge’s office, held currently by Judge Joseph Cushner. He has held the judgeship since being appointed to complete an unexpired term in 2020 and was elected in 2022.
The incumbent or any challenger for the judgeship would each pay this year’s highest Bulloch County local candidate qualifying fee, $5,081.38. Being a Georgia lawyer and a Bulloch County resident are among the requirements for this full-time position.
The county Board of Commissioners officially set the fees for all of the county offices in December, but this was a required formality, since the fees are prescribed by state law and generally based on 3% of the salary for each office.
Incidentally, the political parties keep 50% of the qualifying fees paid by party primary candidates, but the county gets 100% of the fees for nonpartisan seats.
Board of Education
Candidates for Bulloch County Board of Education seats also qualify with Jones in the Elections Board office. In contrast to the judgeship, the nonpartisan school board seats – for which candidates need to be residents of a specific BOE district – have the county’s lowest candidate qualifying fee, $72. This is the same for any of the four BOE seats up for election this year, which are half of the seats on the eight-member board.
The Board of Education seats up for election in 2026 are the District 2 post currently held by Elizabeth Williams, the District 4 seat held by Donna Clifton, the District 5 seat held by Glennera Martin and the District 6 seat held by Jimmy “Jay” Cook Jr.
Williams is currently board chair, but one of the district members is selected for that post annually by vote of the board.
County commissioners
Unlike the school board, the Board of Commissioners has members identified by political party, and the seats are also apportioned very differently. For the purpose of electing regular voting commissioners, the county is divided into just two districts.
Majority-white District 2 encompasses roughly two-thirds of the county population and elects a total of four commissioners, two in each cycle of even-numbered election years. Majority-minority District 1, with about one-third the total population, elects a total of two members, one in each cycle. There is also a countywide elected chairman, but the chair is now in the second year of a four-year term.
In Commission District 1, Seat B, also called “1-B,” is up for election this year. This seat is currently held by Commissioner Anthony Simmons, a Democrat and the longest-serving, in office since Jan. 1, 1992.
In Commission District 2, Seats B and D are up for election. Seat 2-B is held by Toby Conner, a Republican, first elected in 2022. Seat 2-D is held by Timmy Rushing, also a Republican, first elected in 2018.
The candidate qualifying fee for each of these three seats is $225.
Again, candidates for partisan offices do not qualify directly with Jones at the Board of Elections office. Instead, they qualify with county-level party officials.
Jones offers both the Bulloch County Democratic Committee and the Bulloch County Republican Party space across the lobby from her office in the County Annex to conduct qualifying, but for the past many years only the Democrats have used the county-offered space.
That is again the case, with the Democratic Committee confirming that it will use the room provided at the County Annex, 113 North Main St., Jones said. Meanwhile, the Bulloch County Republican Party will again use a place of its own, but this year’s local GOP qualifying site is a new one, literally across a side street from the annex and also on North Main.
New GOP location
For the past few election cycles, the county GOP had signed up candidates in an office and commercial building off Joe Kennedy Boulevard, behind Ogeechee Technical College.
But for the March 2-6, 2026 qualifying, the Bulloch County Republican Party will instead receive candidates in state Rep. Lehman Franklin’s legislative office at the Franklin Court building, 127 North Main St., Statesboro.
The office will be open for this purpose the full available hours, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. that Monday through Thursday and 9 a.m.-noon that Friday, county Republican Party Chair Shannon K. Middleton stated in a Jan. 12 letter to the Elections Board. The letter also stated that Lawton Sack will be the party’s local official for qualifying.
2 expected challengers
Two potential newcomer candidates have declared their intentions to run for the two county commission seats up for election in District 2 as Republican candidates. Back on Oct. 14, 2025, Frank Bedell III filed a Declaration of Intention to Accept Campaign Contributions for the purpose of seeking Seat 2-B, which will make him an in-party, primary challenger to Conner if Conner also runs, and Conner has said he will.
Similarly, potential candidate Kristen Stampfer on Dec. 5 filed a declaration of intent to accept contributions, also as a Republican, for Seat 2-D, and so could be a primary challenger for Rushing.
But no candidates are officially qualified until they pay the qualifying fees and file the required forms next week.
Jones notes that she has all the forms available and can answer questions. The Bulloch County Elections office phone number is (912) 764-6502.
he Georgia Secretary of State’s Office has online information for candidates and potential candidates at https://sos.ga.gov/candidate-qualifying-elected-office, including a more than 200-page handbook on candidate qualifications for various offices.
Voter deadlines
Meanwhile, potential voters should be aware that April 20 is the deadline to register to vote or update their name and address information for the May 19 party primary and nonpartisan general election. March 2-May 8 is the time window to apply for an absentee ballot.