Calling investigative reporters: here’s a trail of fishy behavior in the Brooks County elections.
George Rhynes brings up an interesting point in

Quitman Ten, Judge Porter’s decision, News Media Outlets, Is Another Investigation Needed, and can Justice Be Found in South Georgia?
The two write-in candidates in the general election
for the Brooks County Board of Education
were allowed to run despite a clear restriction in the Georgia code,
O.C.G.A. 21-2-133.
This restriction is mentioned in the Ga. Secretary of State

Candidate Training Guide:

No person shall be eligible as a write-in candidate in a general
or special election if such person was a candidate for nomination or
election to the same office in the immediately preceding primary.

Also in the same department’s

Qualifications and Disqualifications for Holding State or County
Elective Office in Georgia,
which repeats this restriction for every type of elected office,
including Member, County Board of Education, on page 242, section 10.b.

Yet, as George points out:

…the Honorable Judge Richard Porter ruled that Brooks County Board of
Education members Gary Rentz and Myra Exum were in compliance with the law
and would remain as write-in candidates for the Nov. 2 General Election.

What the judge ruled does not appear to be what the law says.

George notes that wasn’t the only irregularity:

The alleged voter intimidation; unprecedented questions asked to parents;
their children working in Valdosta; and where they were asked to drive
in order to meet with investigators. These complaints were unreal and
reminded us of the 1960s; but NO news media published their concerns to
the general public. There were elderly citizens in Quitman and Morven
that were afraid to return to the polls and vote in the November election.

Despite all this, Linda Troutman and Elizabeth Thomas beat their opponents
in the primary and again in the general election.
And then

were arrested shortly after they took office.
Voter intimidation in the primary, write-in candidates in the general
despite a clear prohibition in the Georgia Code, and the (twice) winning
candidates then getting arrested on a technicality?
Something smells fishy in Brooks County.

As George says:

A real free press is very much needed here in South Georgia so citizens
will not be left deaf; dumb; and blind to what goes on in their community.

We need to find a business model that will fund such a press.

-jsq