In-person advanced voting began Monday and will conclude Friday in the Republican primary runoff between incumbent Jappy Stringer and challenger Nick Newkirk for Bulloch County Board of Commissioners Seat C in District 2. The runoff concludes with Election Day voting Tuesday, June 18.
Then the winner between Newkirk and Stringer will go on to face a Democrat, Len Fatica, in the Nov. 5 general election.
Early voting in the Republican runoff is available 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. daily in the elections office at the County Annex, 113 North Main St., Suite 201, until Friday, June 14. Polls in the traditional voting precincts will open 7 a.m.-7 p.m. June 18.
The deadline to request a mailed absentee ballot has passed. It was June 7, but absentee ballots can be counted if completed and returned to the county election headquarters – not a precinct poll – any weekday and before the close of polls at 7 p.m. June 18.
Not all Bulloch County registered voters can vote in this runoff. Only those who live in County Commission District 2 and who did not use the Democratic Party ballot to vote in the May 21 primary are eligible to participate. However, it does include a large portion of the county, since District 2 elects multiple commissioners and encompasses about two-thirds of Bulloch’s population.
Stringer’s experience
Stringer, a Bulloch County native, is in the fourth year of his second consecutive term as a commissioner.
“I’ve lived here all my life, I love Bulloch County, and that’s the reason I started,” Stringer said in an earlier interview. “I just felt like it was something I could contribute to, with my business experience living here all my life, and now that I’ve been a commissioner almost eight years.”
He said it “takes a year or two to learn how” to do things as a commissioner. Laws and regulations mandate and limit what the county governing board can do, and commissioners attend classes offered by the Association County Commissioners of Georgia.
Jasper W. “Jappy” Stringer, who is now 67, graduated from Statesboro High and attended Georgia Southern for a couple of years. He worked for the Sheriff’s Department as a radio operator while still in school. But he left both to work at his father’s service station. Jappy Stringer and his wife, Emily, then owned and operated the full-service Chevron station on Fair Road for more than 30 years, until they sold it in 2015.
He also served more than 27 years as a volunteer firefighter with the Statesboro Fire Department, which then had volunteers, and also with a Bulloch County Emergency Medical Service rescue unit.
Newkirk’s concerns
Nick G. Newkirk, 44, has not run for an elected office before. He and his wife, April, who previously served on the Bulloch County Board of Education, have been Bulloch residents 21 years, since 2003, and now reside in the Leefield area.
“I started seeing the way everything was going with the high raise in taxes and the growth that was coming, and I just felt like it was my time to try to step up and help to take control of that, try to keep the taxes from going up any more and try to do a little bit of control of the growth,” Newkirk said in an earlier interview.
He operates Crazy Nick’s Inflatables, which he has owned for 15 years, and is in the process of opening another business, Little Nicky’s Pizzeria, in Brooklet. For about 10 years before going full-time with his inflatable amusements business he did utility contractor work, including laying water and sewer lines.
Originally from Effingham County, Newkirk graduated from Effingham County High and then attained a bachelor’s degree in construction management from Southern Polytechnic State University, since consolidated into Kennesaw State.
Previous round
In the May 21 Republican primary, Newkirk garnered 3,166 votes, or almost 47% of the total in what was then a three-candidate race, while Stringer collected 2,707 votes, or about 40.2%, and Brian Pfund 866 votes, or a little less than 13%. Meanwhile, Fatica, who chairs the Bulloch County Democratic Committee, was unopposed on his party’s ballot, becoming the Seat 2-C Democratic nominee.