A Push to Move on from a 2020 Election Scandal

In Coffee County, a push to move on from a 2020 election scandal October 23, 2023 8:16 AM Stephen Fowler …Christy Nipper, the new elections supervisor in Coffee County, says new equipment, new staff and a new elections office space are some of the steps taken to move past the 2021 data theft. …Around Coffee County, about 200 miles south of Atlanta, there has been little public attention paid to the breach, the criminal charges or the guilty pleas that are trickling in. "No one around here would have ever thought this would happen in Coffee County," retired teacher Judi Worrell said. "These kind of things happen in the big cities. You read about this in the newspaper and then when you read that it's happening outside your front door, it brings it home very quickly, and it's very disturbing." Sitting at a coffee shop, Worrell is one of just a handful of residents who have shared lingering concerns about the breach at public meetings. Coffee County has about 44,000 residents — most of them Republicans — and with a small-town atmosphere, Worrell said some people don’t want to talk about bad things that involve friends, family or neighbors. "I don't think there's very many that are really, truly interested in it or are aware of the depth of it, really," she said. "And I think some people just don't want to know for whatever reason." Even with new machines and new staff, Worrell worries that there won’t be enough accountability ahead of the next presidential election in 2024. "A lot of people want to say, 'Well, they're handling it in Atlanta; they'll take care of it,'" she said. "And I guess to some point that is true. But my idea of looking at it is we need to take care of our own." While the residents of Coffee County might not be following every twist and turn with the racketeering indictments playing out in an Atlanta courtroom, there have been major developments affecting the case. Hall and Powell, two key outside players in facilitating the election data theft, have taken plea deals from prosecutors, admitting they interfered with Coffee County’s 2020 election. The former supervisor, Misty Hampton, is still among 16 others awaiting trial, along with former Coffee County GOP Chair Cathy Latham, who is accused of participating in the copying scheme but also faces charges for being a fake elector. [A plea deal is a negotiated resolution of a criminal case between the person accused of a crime and the prosecution. Plea deals are also called plea bargains, plea agreements, or charge bargaining. Criminal laws allow these arrangements if both sides and the judge agree on the deal.] Source: https://www.nguoi-viet.com/nvtv-tin-tuc/tu-thu-do-toi-nguyen-van-khanh/cong-hoa-ha-vien-hon-loan-vi-do-la-trump/