Candidate qualifying fees for Bulloch County offices and board posts up for election in 2024 range from $72 for seats on the Board of Education and $100 for county surveyor to almost $2,800 for sheriff and more than $4,100 for State Court solicitor-general.

As part of a unanimous “consent agenda” vote on several items during the Dec. 5, 2023 meeting, the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners formally set the qualifying fees for nine countywide offices and seven districted board seats that will be up for election beginning with the May 21, 2024, party primaries and nonpartisan general election. But would-be candidates won’t actually be able to pay those fees and file the required paperwork until the March 4-8 qualifying week.

Under Georgia law, candidate fees are generally based on 3% of the salary for the particular office. For some offices – clerk of superior court, sheriff, tax commissioner and magistrate – the law prescribes a fee that is 3% of the minimum salary for the office, not including supplements, cost-of-living raises or longevity pay.

For other offices, the county commissioners can set “a reasonable fee” that does not exceed 3% of the previous year’s salary of the current office holder.

In Bulloch County, for the office of sheriff, the exact qualifying fee will be $2,799.43, which is 3% of $93,314, shown in an Association County Commissioners of Georgia 2022 guidebook as the minimum salary for sheriff of a county with from 75,000 to 99,999 residents.

For solicitor-general, a position that requires an attorney to serve full-time as chief prosecutor of misdemeanor cases in the Bulloch County State Court, the candidate qualifying fee is $4,142.37. That’s 3% of $138,079.

Other county offices

Two local judgeships that (at least for counties of Bulloch’s population size) do not require judges to be law school graduates will be up for election in 2024. For Magistrate Court judge, the qualifying fee is $2,474.18. For Probate Court judge candidates, the fee is $2,425.67.

Other countywide, full-time offices up for election will be clerk of the Superior Court, with a candidate fee of $2,425.67, and tax commissioner, also with a fee of $2,425.67.

Two countywide-elected jobs with less than full-time salaries are the coroner, for which the qualifying fee is $630, or 3% of $21,000, and county surveyor, with a qualifying fee of $100. Both offices are usually held by people who maintain private-sector jobs in their professions while serving in the public role.

Similarly, the chairman of the Board of Commissioners, also up for election this year, is elected county-wide and receives a $20,000 base salary, reflected in a $600 qualifying fee.

Board seats

Additionally, three district-elected county commission seats are due for election in 2024, and for each of these the qualifying fee is $225. The three are District 1, Seat A, currently held by Commissioner Ray Mosley; District 2, seat A, currently held by Commissioner Curt Deal; and District 2, Seat C, currently held by Commissioner Jappy Stringer.

The qualifying fee for seats on the eight-member Bulloch County Board of Education is $72, and the four seats due for election in 2024 are those in District 1, currently held by Glenn Womack; District 3, currently held by Stuart H. Tedders; District 7, currently held by Heather Mims; and District 8, currently held by Maurice Hill.

The magistrate judge, probate judge and Board of Education are required to be non-partisan, while all of the other offices named here are usually elected from partisan primaries.

When the qualifying window opens, March 4-8, candidates for the party primaries will need to qualify with the county Democratic Party or Republican Party committees, while nonpartisan candidates qualify at the county elections office.

The fees for the partisan offices are split 50-50 between the party organizations and the county government to help fund elections. But fees from candidates for the nonpartisan seats go entirely to the county, Bulloch County Elections Supervisor Shontay Jones stated in an email reply.

The May primary election here will also include candidates for Georgia’s 12th District seat in the U.S. House, as well as each regional district’s state House and Senate seats. 

Presidential primary

Meanwhile, the first election of 2024, Georgia’s March 12 presidential preference primary, has a deadline of Feb. 12 for people who aren’t registered to vote to do so and for those already registered to update their address or name.  This can be done online though the statewide My Voter Page, https://mvp.sos.ga.gov/s/ or in-person at the Bulloch County Board of Elections and Registration office in the County Annex, 113 North Main St., Suite 201, Statesboro.

Early in-person voting in the presidential primary will be available Feb. 19-March 8, including Saturday voting Feb. 24 and March 2.

The period to apply for an absentee paper ballot to be mailed to your address of record in the county or to an address outside the county actually begins this year, spanning Dec. 25, 2023-March 1, 2024.

“Yes, the 25th of December is the earliest we can start accepting absentee applications for March 12th, 2024, (presidential primary),” Jones said. “Our office will be closed; however, voters may still submit request electronically, such as online, email, or fax.”

Under state law, the first day the elections office staff can mail out those absentee ballots is Feb. 12, except that military and overseas U.S. citizen ballots, which are the only absentee ballots with a digital format, can and will be sent sooner, Jones said.

No runoff from the presidential primary is possible. But a potential June 18 runoff of partisan nominating races from the May 21 primaries, followed by the Nov. 5 general election and a possible Dec. 3 general election runoff, round out the 2024 election calendar.