In connection with attempts to stop a municipal election last November after one of the mayor’s cronies was disqualified from a city council race, the mayor of a small Georgia city and two former election officials were imprisoned on felony charges.
Two days after being indicted by a grand jury on a felony count of election interference and a misdemeanor count of conspiracy to commit election fraud, Camilla Mayor Kelvin Owens was being held at the Mitchell County jail on Friday.
Rhunette Williford, the city’s previous elections superintendent, and Cheryl Ford, her former deputy superintendent and current city clerk in Camilla, were both imprisoned.
They were accused of the same offenses as the mayor in addition to misdemeanor counts of not carrying out their official responsibilities.
A protracted court struggle over municipal politics in Camilla, a farming village of roughly 5,000 people in rural southwest Georgia, caused chaos during extraordinary elections for two city council seats last November.
Venterra Pollard, a municipal council member who was ousted from office last summer after a judge determined he wasn’t a Camilla resident, was at the center of the case.
In the September special election, Pollard ran to reclaim the post.
Another judge declared that votes for Pollard should be thrown out and ordered him to be disqualified. Additionally, the city was mandated to put up signs stating that Pollard’s votes would not be tallied.
Williford and Ford resigned as the city’s two chief elections officials on November 4, the day before Election Day.
“Mental duress, stress, and coercion experienced by recent court decisions regarding our role in elections” was the reason given in their joint resignation letter.
Owens quickly put an end to the city’s elections by claiming his emergency powers as mayor.
The election was canceled, according to a Facebook announcement and signs at City Hall. In the morning, poll workers and voters were not allowed to enter polling stations.
After Superior Court Judge Heather Lanier ordered polls to stay open until almost 4 a.m. and appointed new supervisors to monitor the vote, the elections were held, albeit several hours later than planned. The presidential, congressional, and other elections remained unaffected.
Mayor Owens had attributed the local unrest to racial politics, claiming that Pollard, who is Black, was singled out by white citizens who were attempting to usurp power away from the Black majority.
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Nearly three-fourths of Camilla is Black.
In a Facebook message, the Georgia NAACP expressed its “deep alarm” over the accusations of election meddling and the detention of Owens and the two former Black election officials.
“We were shocked that there were indictments,” Gerald Griggs, president of the Georgia NAACP stated. “We are still in a fact-finding mode to see what actually happened.”
A hearing was scheduled for Monday, and all three suspects were still in custody.
If any of them had lawyers who could represent them, that was not immediately known. Two of Owens’ phone numbers received messages requesting comment.
Camilla is on the circuit of District Attorney Joe Mulholland, who declined to comment on the indictment Friday.
