Tag Archives: criminalization of politics

“Mayor, two other former local officials indicted in south Georgia for election interference in municipal races last year”

chicanery, election administration, residency, ,

On the same day as the 2024 general election (which was run by the county), municipal elections were scheduled in Camilla, Georgia.  There was a firestorm with notable racial overtones about the eligibility of a former city councilmember, who had resigned after a court found that he was not a resident of the city and could not be on the 2024 ballot.  (Appellate decision here; more coverage here.)  The elections supervisor apparently refused to remove the former councilmember from the ballot; both she and her deputy resigned the night before the election.   

Apparently under the advice of the city attorney and guidance from the Secretary of State’s Office, the city council voted “not to proceed with the election to avoid incurring a fine due to the absence of a certified Election Superintendent” – and the mayor allegedly instructed the city’s police chief to post officers outside polling places for the municipal election preventing people from entering.

And now the elections supervisor, her deputy, and the mayor have been indicted by a county grand jury for interfering with an election.

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Did Rick Perry Threaten Grand Jurors?

chicanery

One state judge appears to think he may have, according to this report:

Judge Julie Kocurek of the 390th District Court, a Democrat, said Perry’s Saturday statement, issued a day after the indictment, could be construed as a threat and possible violation of the law. Kocurek, as the administrative presiding judge of all criminal courts in the county, said that “no one is above the law,” and the public needs to know that grand jurors are legally protected from any threat….

The judge said that Perry might have made a veiled threat when he said: “I am confident we will ultimately prevail, that this farce of a prosecution will be revealed for what it is, and that those responsible will be held to account.”

I understand the desire to protect grand jurors but, to my ears, this is far too vague to be deemed a proscribable threat to them.  Gov. Perry could have been — and in my view, probably was — referring to the prosecutor rather than grand jurors.  And I see nothing wrong with his calling for public officials to be “held to account.”

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