State Representative Barry Fleming of R-Harlem is a co-sponsor of a bill that is among more than 250 proposals, pending in 43 states, to restrict access to voting. Until last week, Fleming also served as a county attorney in Hancock County, where 7 out of 10 residents are black and where residents will vote until the end of the year under the supervision of a court-appointed examiner after the county electoral council. he was accused in a federal process of unfair removal of voters – most of them black – from the lists.
Although Fleming was not the county’s top defendant’s attorney in the federal lawsuit, his recent efforts to limit access to voting in the state have angered some residents of Hancock County, who are still recovering from the battle for voter lists.
“So many people in the county didn’t know he was the lawyer. Now, some blacks in the community who … have an understanding of things are furious,” said Johnny Thornton, who helped start the federal process after the Elections and Records Council eliminated him from the voting lists in 2015.
“We are one of the poorest counties in the country and we are paying this lawyer and he is in Atlanta creating laws to further restrict our voting rights,” he said.
The issue in Georgia’s sprawling central county of 8,500 people arose when former government candidate Stacey Abrams and other voting rights activists condemned efforts led by the Republican Party to limit access to the ballot box across the country, saying that the projects represent attacks on democracy and black voters.
President Joe Biden last week exercised his executive power to launch a counter-offensive, expanding access to voting, and a comprehensive bill that is pending in Congress would run counter to state efforts to restrict access to voting.
Fleming is the chairman of the Special Electoral Integrity Commission for the state legislature. Despite the Republican state secretary of Georgia repeatedly saying that there is no evidence of widespread fraud in the November election, Fleming tried to restrict access to the vote and compared the absent vote to “the dark part of the city near the docks”.
Its House 531 bill includes several restrictions on access to voting, limitation of ballot boxes, absentee voting and early voting on Sunday – the latter a popular method of voting among black churches, which provide transportation to take “souls to the ballot box. “
Ninety-seven House Republicans approved the bill, while 72 Democrats voted against it. The bill is pending on the state Senate Ethics Committee after a hearing on Tuesday.
Protesters demand action and succeed
Last week, about 40 protesters, many wearing “Black Voters Matter” T-shirts, took the steps of the Hancock County Courthouse in Sparta. Their posters left no mystery as to their expectations of the Council of Commissioners at their regular meeting:
“Fleming doesn’t care about Hancock”
“A vote for him is a vote against us”
“Fire Fleming! Protect our vote!”
“Barry needs to be suppressed”
The commissioners chose to ask Fleming to resign, although his reasoning is unclear: the minutes indicate that his future with the county was decided in an hour-long executive session closed to the public.
“I don’t think it is necessary to argue,” Commissioner Ted Reid, who was at the session, told CNN. “Mr. Fleming was asked to resign by unanimous consent.”
Asked why, Reid said the commission issued a statement, but referred to the minutes of the committee meeting, which are not official and do not provide a justification.
They just say, “Commissioners’ unanimous consent to ask for Fleming’s resignation” and add that “as long as the search for county attorney services is in progress”, any legal issues will be dealt with by a partner at Fleming’s law firm outside Augusta.
CNN reached out to all the commissioners appointed in the minutes. BOC President Sistie Hudson, BOC Secretary Borderick Foster and Commissioners Gloria Cooper, Steve Hill and Randolph Clayton did not return emails or phone calls from CNN seeking comment.
Reid does not know whether Fleming agreed to the BOC’s request, he said on Monday, but local media reports indicate that Fleming resigned last week. Fleming, who also serves as a prosecutor in Burke, Glascock and Putnam counties and represented several small towns in Georgia, did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.
“Hancock County is a great place,” the former lawmaker told CNN affiliate WXIA. “There is a great Council of Commissioners there. I enjoyed working with them for, I think, nine years, and I only wish them the best.”
Speaking to the legislator after a closed-door session on electoral projects, WXIA reported that Fleming said he did not feel animosity towards the county.
“Absolutely none. They are good people, and if I could do something in the future to help them, I would be happy to do it,” he said.
People protesting his proposed voting law “misinterpret” many of its components, he said, according to the station, which did not provide details.
Abrams says legislation targets black voters
Fleming’s resignation came days before Abrams, the 2018 candidate for governor and voting activist, overthrew state election projects across the country, claiming that his goal is to suppress black votes after a November election that had a record statewide turnout. and national. She compared Georgia’s efforts to “a Jim Crow redux, in a suit and tie”.
“The only connection we can find is that more people of color voted, and that changed the election results to a direction that Republicans don’t like,” Abrams told CNN.
Despite assurances by Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, that there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the recent elections – which saw Biden and two Democratic senators win over Georgia – former President Donald Trump and other Republicans repeatedly did false claims that the 2020 election was rigged.
Raffensperger said in January that Trump was operating on “bad data”, and The Washington Post reported last month that the Fulton County District Attorney, which includes parts of Atlanta, is investigating a link between Trump’s loyal senator, Lindsey Graham , R-South Carolina and Raffensperger to determine whether the Trump team violated any laws by trying to reverse their electoral defeat. Raffensperger’s office is also investigating the former president. Graham refuted Raffensperger’s account of the call.
In an opinion piece for The Augusta Chronicle days after the November election, Fleming referred to the “always suspicious absent voting process” in Georgia and other states, and told readers to expect the Republican-led General Assembly to resolve the subject this year.
“If the elections were like coastal cities,” wrote Fleming, “the absent vote would be the dark part of the city near the docks you don’t want to enter.”
He ended by urging readers to elect Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue to the United States Senate. Republicans lost their seats in the second round of January, which handed over control of the Senate to Democrats. The trusted Democratic Hancock County ticked the boxes for Biden and Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock by 71.7%, 72.3% and 72.4%, respectively.
Voters still feel the pain of being burned
The county voted in the 2020 general and second round elections under the supervision of an examiner appointed by the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia. Thornton and other voters filed a lawsuit in 2015 after the county Elections and Registry Board tried to remove voters from the lists and sent deputies to their homes, calling on them to prove their eligibility.
“BOER often accepted rumors, speculation and unsubstantiated rumors provided by unidentified witnesses and anonymous individuals as sufficient evidence to remove registered black voters,” the suit said.
Almost all of the voters targeted in the purge were African-American. When resident Larry Webb, who is black, went to the BOER to challenge white voters that he knew had died or moved out of the county, emails revealed in the process showed that voters did not take Webb’s objections seriously. They also refused to send deputies to the homes of white voters, unless Webb paid $ 50 per unit, where BOER had sent deputies to the homes of black voters as a courtesy, Webb told CNN.
Responding to the process, the electoral council “vehemently” denied having violated any law, including black voters.
The federal court reinstated many of the voters purged from the lists and administered a consent decree, appointing an examiner “who will review BOER’s actions in relation to maintaining voter lists and contestations based on residency” and make recommendations on how to comply with the law state, the court order said.
Atlanta attorney Gary Spencer told CNN in December that the county has been “a little quiet” since his appointment. For many residents, however, it is difficult to forget recent history.
“What they did was beyond voter suppression. If something is wrong with your voter registration, they should call you and tell you what is wrong. What they were doing is getting you off the lists and you wouldn’t find out until the election, “Webb told CNN. “They were making black vows disappear.”
