This is a blog about the small town of Tucker, Georgia, which is located just outside the major metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia. On March 13, 2013, the residents of Tucker learned that a small group of politically motivated individuals who lived nearby wanted to incorporate using Tucker's commercial areas and leaving many of the long-time residents on the outskirts of the new city. This is the story of how the residents have fought back to preserve history and their own community.
Search This Blog
Lavista Hills Election Investigated for Tampering
According to the AJC and a Channel 2 Action News Report:
Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp and the GBI opened an investigation Thursday into alleged voting irregularities – including a stray voting machine memory card – in the referendum that narrowly defeated the proposed city of LaVista Hills.
A DeKalb election supervisor alleged that he found an unsecured memory card Wednesday that contained results from the Briarlake Elementary precinct, according to Channel 2 Action News. It’s unknown whether the votes on the memory card were counted in the precinct’s totals, where voters supported LaVista Hills 378-313.
“As Secretary of State I take any allegation of elections fraud seriously,” Kemp said. “Our office has opened an official investigation of possible criminal activity during the Nov. 3 elections in DeKalb County.”
Investigators take a voting machine and a desktop computer from the DeKalb County elections office on Thursday afternoon November 5, 2015. Ben Gray / bgray@ajc.com
Leonard Piazza, the second in command at DeKalb County’s Office of Voter Registration and Elections, says there were serious irregularities regarding the LaVista vote.
Piazza says some voters were turned away at their polling place, and voter material wasn’t properly secured.
He also told Channel 2 there was a memory card that collects citizen votes loose in the office.
Kemp said he has asked the Center for Elections at Kennesaw State University and the GBI to assist in this investigation. He called in the GBI to assist due to the alleged theft of secured memory cards and fraud allegations. Once completed, the investigation will be presented to the State Elections Board.
The LaVista Hills cityhood proposal fell short Tuesday by 136 votes, less than 1 percent of all votes cast.
The election could be invalidated if a judge finds misconduct, fraud or irregularities that could change the result, according to Georgia law.
This could be the change that residents will see if Tucker 2015 is successful in getting its referendum nto a ballot and voters approve it. The driving force behind the city of Tucker has been the leadership within the community known as "Smoke Rise, GA." Smoke Rise residents currently have addresses that say "Stone Mountain, GA" and many of them worked hard in order to create a separate identity for themselves, petitioning the U.S. Post Office to change their official name to "Smoke Rise." While the Post Office did not agree to change the official name, they did agree to allow "Smoke Rise" as a recognized alternative to "Stone Mountain" that could be used interchangeably as long as it accompanied their 30087 zip code. It is important to note that these residents did not ask the Post Office to recognize their use of "Tucker" as an acceptable alternative. They asked to be called "Smoke Rise." It appears t...
From the time of the first announcement ever made about a "Lakeside City" (now called "Lavista Hills), we heard the name "Kevin Levitas" associated with it. It wasn't clear if he was the leader or if it was Mary Kay Woodworth, or possibly both of them together in a typical PTA type of shared credit, deflected blame. But, what we did NOT know until much later was the very long standing love/hate relationship that Mr. Levitas has with our community. We don't know or understand all the factors that have gone into his crusade to destroy Tucker any more than we can understand a politician who switches parties but maintains that his own philosophy on life has remained the same (which was also something Levitas did, along with others including our own Governor of Georgia). But, what is downright outrageous and possibly even deceptive to our Central Dekalb citizens is the fact that Levitas, who has publicly stated his confusion over what exactly is a...
Comments
Post a Comment