The mayor of a small Georgia city and two former election workers have been jailed on felony charges stemming from efforts to stop a local election last fall.

Camilla Mayor Kelvin Owens was being held at the Mitchell County jail Friday, two days after a grand jury indicted him on a felony charge of election interference and a misdemeanor count of conspiring to commit election fraud.

Also jailed were the city’s former elections superintendent, Rhunette Williford; and her former deputy superintendent, Cheryl Ford, who is currently Camilla’s city clerk. They were charged with the same crimes as the mayor, plus misdemeanor counts of failing to perform their duties as public officers.

Chaos roiled special elections for a pair of city council seats in Camilla last November amid a long-running legal battle over local politics in the town, a farming community of about 5,000 people in rural southwest Georgia.

  • randon31415@lemmy.world
    1·
    12 days ago

    Is this the same town where they elected a black mayor and the former mayor didn’t recognize the election, so they barred him from entering town hall or looking at any of the finances? Something about a secret meeting that canceled the election that no one knew about so somehow the town wound up with two dueling city councils?

  • HellsBelle@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
    1·
    12 days ago

    I’m not trying to condemn everyone in America, but HOLY FUCK people … y’all gotta start clamping down on some shit, ie: penal slave labour, gerrymandering, election fraud, and getting rid of Trump.