From the Yalamanchili campaign:
Kalki Yalamanchili, Independent Candidate for District Attorney of the Western Judicial Circuit, announced that he hand-delivered over 14,000 signatures to the Secretary of State on Monday morning to secure his place on the ballot in the November election as an independent candidate. Georgia law requires that independent candidates collect signatures from 5% of people eligible to vote when the seat was last voted on in 2020.
After delivering the signatures to the Secretary of State’s office, Kalki returned to downtown Athens to address members of the press and discuss his campaign’s next steps. He began by expressing his sincere gratitude to those who helped complete this monumental task.
“I want to take a moment to thank this community for the outpouring of support whether it be grassroots volunteers who collected signatures or people who called and emailed to provide well wishes, because there is no way we would have accomplished this goal without their support,” he said.
Kalki said that he expects official confirmation to come from the Secretary of State in the next five to seven weeks but that he feels extremely confident his name will be on the ballot in November. “14,000 signatures is well over two times the required number of signatures needed to be on the ballot and it’s more than double our goal we originally set that had built in a healthy buffer,” he reiterated.
As an extra step of caution, the campaign brought in a professional company to audit the project and serve as quality control. The signatory must be a registered voter in Clarke or Oconee to be considered valid. They verified nearly 10,000 signatures, a number the campaign believes will leave no doubt that Kalki will be on the ballot.
By running as an Independent, Kalki hopes voters will be persuaded that public safety is not a partisan issue, saying, “The District Attorney’s office is not a place for political partisanship. ‘Justice for all’ means an office that does the right thing the right way, regardless of who is watching.”
Kalki wrapped up his comments by highlighting several of the current District Attorney’s recent professional shortcomings and expressing how his campaign is organized, funded, and ready to fully focus on the November General Election. He believes his relevant law experience, including over six years as a prosecutor five of which he served as Assistant District Attorney in the Western Judicial Circuit, and extensive community involvement will set him apart from his opponent in this race.