To some people in Coffee County, deep in southern Georgia and far from interstates, the alleged crimes were merely the latest chapter in a local history of failing to secure the rights and votes of residents. And they worry it’s a history that will repeat.
Prosecutors allege that former county Republican Party chair Cathy Latham and former elections supervisor Misty Hampton helped to facilitate employees from a firm hired by Trump attorneys to access and copy sensitive voter data and election software. Surveillance video captured Latham waving the visitors inside, and Hampton in the office as they allegedly accessed the data. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Coley-Pearson, named a “human rights hero” by the American Bar Association, follows in the footsteps of her mother, who was a political activist in Coffee County in the 1970s, the decade after segregationist Gov. Lester Maddox had picked the county to host many of his speeches. Gladys Coley is commemorated with others in a memorial plaque for fighting for civil rights in Douglas and across the county.
Coley-Pearson is well-known for helping people who may need a ride to the polls. Not everyone around town appreciates her efforts, however. In a Facebook Live video posted a couple days before the alleged breach, Latham complained about Coley-Pearson’s get-out-the-vote efforts for Georgia’s runoff elections to the US Senate.
“Olivia Pearson’s up to her normal – handing out hamburgers and hot dogs … to people who voted and stuff,” Latham said, running her fingers through her cropped blonde hair in apparent exasperation. “So, all kinds of things happening in Coffee County just to get people to come vote. Yeah, it’s not a really good situation down here.”
Coley-Pearson had tangled with local officials over voter access several times. Georgia law allows people who are disabled or illiterate to get assistance in voting, and Coley-Pearson helped with that in the 2012 election. At the time, it seemed uneventful.
But Coffee County officials complained to the Georgia secretary of state’s office that she helped people who didn’t qualify for assistance. It led to a years-long investigation, and though the state didn’t prosecute her, she was charged locally with two felonies. After one trial ended in a hung jury, she was found not guilty in the second in 2018.