District 54
The vacant state Senate seat covers Whitfield and Murray counties. It also includes eastern Gordon County and western Pickens County.
North Georgia voters might have received mailers this week promoting an upcoming special election.
And unlike the ones they got last week, these will include the correct voting date.
Joseph Brannan, the Georgia GOP's District 2 chairman, sent a round of mailers at the end of December, telling people about the state Senate race between Chuck Payne and Debby Peppers. The mailers said election day is Jan. 17.
Problem is, the election is actually Jan. 10.
Some Georgia Democrats have accused Brannan of trying to suppress the vote, using the incorrect mailers to trick local liberals into staying home. The race, which is for Charlie Bethel's old District 54 state Senate seat, has become a point of interest for Democrats, who believe they have a shot to win the race in a traditionally conservative territory.
Gov. Nathan Deal appointed Bethel to the Georgia Court of Appeals in November, vacating his Senate seat. This led to a special election Dec. 13, with five candidates. And this, in turn, led to a runoff between the two most popular candidates: Payne (36.1 percent) and Peppers (27.4 percent).
Payne has been a member of the Whitfield County Republican Party since the early 1990s. Peppers, meanwhile, used to serve on the Whitfield County Commission as a Democrat. She is running as an independent candidate, though she said she would caucus with Democrats if she wins next week.
The District 54 seat covers Whitfield and Murray counties and parts of Gordon and Pickens counties.
Even though the area voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in the presidential election, some Democrats think Peppers has a shot because a relatively low amount of voters will likely stay home Jan. 10, an unusual day for an election. In the Dec. 13 race, only 6.6 percent of registered voters came to the polls.
Michael Jablonski, the Georgia Democrats' lawyer, believes the mailers with the wrong election date were sent in an effort to keep Democrats home. He believes Brannan sent them to people on Democratic voter rolls, hoping to confuse them.
Still, he doesn't know if the case can be proven. The party is investigating, he said, hoping to prove that most mailers went to Democrats. If Payne wins, he said, the party could then challenge the election, forcing yet another race.
"It is very difficult to believe that anybody would mail something with the wrong date when the person doing the mailing is a party official," Jablonski said of Brannan. "That is a mistake that is rarely, if ever, made. It's more than raising an eyebrow. The second step is: What evidence can we put together that shows intent?"
But Brannan said his mistake was an honest one. If anything, the mailers will hurt Payne. He said he sent the mailers to people who had voted early in Republican primaries, people who would probably support the conservative candidate next week.
Brannan, who is in charge of the congressional district in the southwestern corner of the state, said he wanted to promote next week's election to help a fellow Republican. He designed the mailers with a friend in Atlanta, but each person overlooked the election date portion of it.
"It was a mistake that we feel bad about and apologize for," he said. "We immediately got the new mailer out as soon as we could get it printed."
The new mailer, which Brannan sent to the Times Free Press, looks exactly the same as the one he sent last week. Except the election date reads Jan. 10. And above it, with a red stripe and white block letters, Brannan wrote: "Corrected Election Date."
Payne bankruptcy
In a statement, Payne addressed his Chapter 7 bankruptcy case, which he filed in June 2013. According to his petition at the time, Payne had $8,420 in credit card debts and $3,390 in consumer loan debt.
"Like many hard working Northwest Georgians, my family struggled greatly during the recession," he said in a statement. "Our local economy impacts us directly. Times were tough, and we did what we had to do to get through it. I'm running for office to give a voice to those who often feel like they don't have one."
The country's most recent recession ran from December 2007-June 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, though some effects of the economic downturn lingered for years after.
Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at 423-757-6476 or tjett@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @LetsJett.