Lesbian Keisha Waites is running for House District 60 in a special election slated for Feb. 7. This will make the ninth attempt Waites has made in seeking an elected office in Atlanta and Georgia.

HD 60 includes parts of Clayton, DeKalb and Fulton counties and the seat was held by Democrat Gloria Tinubu, who was sworn in on Jan. 10, 2011. In December, Tinubu announced she was resigning, moving out of state and running for Congress — in South Carolina, according to the political blog Peach Pundit.

Waites attended a Georgia Equality/Lambda Legal town hall forum on Tuesday that discussed LGBT job protections in the state, but did not officially make a statement she was seeking office.

Waites, a Democrat, faces two others seeking the HD 60 post — Theresa Middlebrooks and Latrenka Riley.

Waites did well when she ran last year for a seat on the Fulton County Commission, garnering more votes  than openly gay Joan Garner in the Democratic primary and forcing a runoff but then losing to Garner in the runoff.

Garner went on to win the seat, making her the first openly gay person to serve on the Fulton County Commission.

Waites has a long track record of running for office, but not winning.

• In 2001, Waites – who went by Sean instead of Keisha on the ballot at that time – ran for the at-large Post 1 seat on the Atlanta City Council.

• In 2002, she ran for State Senate District 36, placing fourth in the Democratic primary.

• In 2004, she was one of four candidates who applied to temporarily fill the Atlanta City Council District 12 seat, but council members did not pick her for the post.

• Waites then ran for the Atlanta City Council in 2005 and ran for Fulton County Commission chair in 2006.

• She ran for State House District 61 in 2008 and received the endorsement of Georgia Equality in that race. Waites again ran for Atlanta City Council in 2009.