Young Easily Wins Reelection as Atlanta Mayor

Mayor Andrew Young, the former U.S. representative to the United Nations and veteran civil rights activist, overwhelmingly won election to a second term in nonpartisan city elections Tuesday.

With 167 of 194 precincts counted, Young had 40,514 votes, or 83.5%, to 4,782 votes, or 9.8%, for tire dealer J. K. Ramey. Private investigator Marvin Yizar had 3,207 votes, or 6.6%.

Young faced what were considered token challenges from Ramey and Yizar. The other Young challenger was comedian Jerry Farber, who campaigned actively as a write-in candidate. Write-in votes had not yet been counted Tuesday night.

Although the polls in Atlanta were open until 8 p.m., Young’s campaign opened its victory party at the Omni International Complex at 7:30 p.m. Young, who claimed victory at 11 p.m., said earlier Tuesday that he viewed the lack of strong opposition as a vote of confidence.

“I think that the fact that I had no stronger opposition basically was my assurance that the overwhelming majority of the city has been encouraged by what we’ve been trying to do,” the mayor said.

In Salt Lake City, interim Democratic Mayor Palmer DePaulis won an election that pared a field of eight candidates to two for a Nov. 5 election, with Republican Merrill A. Cook placing second. The winner in November will fill the last two years of resigned Democratic Mayor Ted Wilson’s term.