Carolyn Cosby Qualifies To Run For Cherokee Commission Chair

While it's unclear if she's garnered enough signatures to be placed on the Nov. 4 general election ballot, Carolyn Cosby has qualified to run as an independent to challenge Buzz Ahrens for the Cherokee County Commission chair seat.

Cosby qualified Friday morning at the Cherokee County Elections and Voter Registration's offices, Elections Supervisor Janet Munda confirmed. 

Cosby is on a campaign to collect the 5,982 signatures needed to be placed on the ballot as an independent candidate to challenge Ahrens in the election. 

Cosby has to collect and turn in the signatures to Munda by noon July 8 to gain placement on the ballot. 

Munda said the process to verify the signatures on the petition is a "huge" undertaking, and one of the requirements in the process includes reviewing each signature manually to determine if they belong to a registered voter in Cherokee County. 

In a press release, Cosby said the campaign "will surge pass the requirement of 5,982 signatures by week’s end."

"These stalwarts gave up much of their summer days to get me on the ballot," she later said, referring to her supporters. "I am, at once, humbled and grateful for their tireless efforts."

In the recent days, however, Cosby has faced verbal dust-ups with local residents in her quest to nab those signatures. In one incident on Monday, June 23, Cosby called Cherokee dispatchers to report a verbal altercation with a resident.

An officer with the Woodstock Police Department responded to the incident, which occurred outside the Cherokee County Tax Commissioner's office at 155 Towne Lake Parkway.

According to the report, a resident by the name of Tim Crane approached Cosby and started asking her questions. Cosby told the officer she did not wish to speak with Crane and the resident "finally left once her husband entered the building to call for security." 

The report alleges Tim Crane patted Cosby on the back and said something along the lines of "good luck with your ethics."

The responding officer indicates Cosby recorded the altercation on her cell phone, but no criminal act could be determined from the video. 

In Canton, a woman, who Cherokee County Tax Commissioner Sonya Little said was not a registered voter, reported she felt "threatened" by a man asking her to sign a petition and had to be escorted from the building to her vehicle. 

Little said the woman was accused of being part of the Smart Citizens Realize Academics Matter, or SCRAM, group and those gathering signatures allegedly took photos of the woman's license plate. 

Cosby also placed campaign signs on the Canton office's property, which Little said she asked Cosby to remove. 

Cosby and her supporters have also asked security guards to remove residents questioning their cause from the offices' property. 

That, the tax commissioner said, creates a "security issue" inside the offices.

"It’s been a huge distraction in the office," she stated, adding those detractors are also well within their rights to ask petitioners questions. 

Cosby was booted from the Canton Post Office after she was told it was illegal to collect signatures for a petition on United States Postal Service grounds. 

She moved her campaign to the Tax Commissioner's Canton and Woodstock offices, which County Attorney Angela Davis said was legal as long as they did not cause a disturbance.