TIFTON — A Tifton woman who organized a voter registration drive held Saturday during the Omega Pepper Festival said she felt less than welcomed by some of the festival’s staff and local law enforcement.

Sarah Gibbs said she knows some of the people who are working on Barack Obama’s campaign.

“They had called organizers of the Pepper Festival a week ahead of time and asked if they could set up a table,” Gibbs said. “They were told that there couldn’t be any campaigning but that someone would be back in touch with them if there was a table available to conduct a voter registration drive.”

Gibbs said organizers of the voter registration drive were told there wasn’t a table available, but she and members of her church wanted to conduct the drive during the festival so they took voter registration cards and attended the festival.

“We were being completely non-partisan and going around asking people to register,” Gibbs said. “Most of the people were nice and appreciated that I was there.”

Then, Gibbs said, someone wearing a festival staff T-shirt told her she had to leave.

“I told her that it is completely within my right to ask people to vote and I was being completely non-partisan,” Gibbs said.

Gibbs said she and others went to a different area of the park and, as they were walking along with the parade, noticed that some of the local political candidates were handing out campaign literature. At approximately 11:30 a.m., Gibbs said, the group went back to the park and began asking people to register to vote and she was again told to leave. She and others then moved to an area outside the park’s entrance to work.

“They came up to me again and said that if I didn’t leave, they would have the police make me leave,” Gibbs said. “There were several politicians and their supporters then who were inside the park passing out yard signs, T-shirts and stickers and there was a lot of campaigning going on.”

Gibbs said she was then approached by a member of law enforcement and asked if she was campaigning for Obama.

“I said, ‘no sir, I am not campaigning for anybody,’” Gibbs said.

Gibbs said she told the man she wasn’t campaigning for anyone and that she was just registering people to vote. She said the man told her she couldn’t do that there.

“I asked him if I was breaking any laws and he said no,” Gibbs said.

Gibbs said she stayed outside the park for the remainder of the festival but an Omega police car was parked nearby and stayed there until she and others left.

Gibbs said the deadline to register to vote in the General Election is Oct. 6 and that many voter registration drives are being held around the state by various organizations. She said she has heard stories that experiences like hers were being felt at various locations around the state where groups were holding voter registration drives.

“I’ve heard so many stories like this,” Gibbs said. “I’m afraid people will be scared to register to vote. There’s a lot of misinformation going around and I just wanted to register people to vote.

“It is really an important election coming up and it will change the course of history. I do have a candidate I support, but I care about people showing up to vote more than who they vote for.”

Gibbs said she picked up voter registration packets from the Tift County Board of Elections and Registration office. Jean Edwards, election supervisor, said Friday that anyone can get the forms and mail the completed ones back to her office or hand-deliver them to the office for processing. She said that those who conduct the voter registration drives can include copies of various forms of identification in with the person’s voter registration card. Gibbs said she included the person’s driver’s license and Social Security numbers on the form after looking at those forms of identification. The county offices then conduct any verification necessary before finalizing approval of the person’s registration.

Gibbs said that she didn’t get names of the people who questioned her about the voter registration during the day and she was nervous when the law enforcement officer approached her.

“I’ve been brought up to respect authority,” Gibbs said.

Omega Police Chief Walt Young could not be reached for comment Monday.

According to information on Georgia Secretary of State Karen C. Handel’s Web site at http://sos.georgia.gov/, the law prohibits any benefit or “reward” such as balloons, candy, school credits, etc., from being provided in exchange for registering to vote or voting.” The site also encourages those organizing voter registration drives to “Be creative with your table - decorate it with bunting, balloons and/or signs encouraging people to ‘Register to Vote here.’”



To contact senior reporter Angie Thompson, call 382-4321.