ATLANTA (AP) — It was almost the election that wasn't.
Balloting didn't finally begin in a special election to the city council in the southwest Georgia town of Camilla until 3:50 p.m. Tuesday, and didn't straggle to a close until 3:50 a.m. Wednesday. A judge intervened to order the election to proceed after Camilla Mayor Kelvin Owens invoked his emergency powers Monday to cancel the voting after two city election officials resigned.
The legal fight over the election put an exclamation point on years of political struggle in the town of 5,000.
“It was kind of crazy," Oscar Maples Jr., one of the candidates in the race, said Wednesday by phone.
Camilla, 55 miles (90 kilometers) north of Tallahassee, Florida, revolves around a Tyson Foods chicken processing plant and farming. Since 2022, city government has been knotted up over attempts to remove two council members — Venterra Pollard and Corey Morgan.
Their legal foes say neither Pollard nor Morgan live in Camilla, and thus can't legally serve on the council. Pollard and Morgan have acknowledged they lease apartments in the cities of Albany and Pelham, respectively, but say their primary residences remain in the city that elected them.
Pollard and Morgan have described themselves as “a progressive majority that believes in equity, inclusion, and diversity both socially and economically,” supporting Mayor Kelvin Owens. Pollard, Morgan and Owens, who are all Black, say the legal action brought by two residents to remove Pollard and Morgan is an attempt by the white minority to impose its will on the nearly three-quarters of Camilla's residents who are Black.
“You had two white men tell about 1,300 African Americans, ‘You don’t know what to do with your vote, and we’ll make that choice for you,’” Owens said of the voters who Pollard and Morgan represented.
But Chris Cohilas, the lawyer for Pollard and Morgan's challengers, said Owens is the one who is dragging race into the fight and that his clients only want to see the law enforced.
“All that they’ve ever wanted was a fair election with people that were actually qualified to run,” Cohilas said.
The legal action began in November 2022, when David Cooper and Joe Bostick sued Pollard and Morgan to challenge their residency. Pollard and Morgan decided to represent themselves. After hearing arguments that the two were trying to avoid submitting evidence and being evasive in depositions, Superior Court Judge Gary McCorvey ruled in July 2023 that Pollard and Morgan were not residents of Camilla and should be removed from the city council.
Pollard and Morgan said they should have been given a jury trial, saying they have driver's licenses, paystubs and other documents proving their residence.
Neither one stepped down from the council while appealing. Then in December the Georgia Court of Appeals denied their attempt to overturn the ruling.
In the meantime, Morgan's term expired and he was reelected. Cohilas argues he's still not a resident.
Pollard stepped down, but then qualified for Tuesday's special election to fill the unexpired term of the seat he resigned from. In September, McCorvey found Pollard in contempt and ordered him to withdraw his candidacy.
When Pollard did not do so, a new judge ordered Pollard disqualified, votes for Pollard discarded, and ordered the city to post signs saying votes for Pollard wouldn't be counted. Camilla runs its own elections with separate polling places instead of contracting with Mitchell County.
When the city still balked, the judge ordered sheriff's deputies to stand guard to ensure the signs remained posted. Pollard argued that police presence, coupled with confusion over the election, amounted to “voter intimidation and suppression."
The city appealed the ruling all the way to the state Supreme Court, but lost Friday.
But that wasn't the end. In a City Council meeting Monday, the mayor announced the city's election officials had resigned and he swiftly invoked his emergency powers to cancel the election.
On Tuesday morning, Councilmember W.D. “Danny” Palmer won a court order appointing new election officials and mandating polls to open and stay open for 12 consecutive hours — the length of time Georgia polling places are usually open between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.
Voting finally began at 3:50 p.m. Tuesday, with Maples and Claretha Thompson on the ballot. Maples, who won the race according to results posted Wednesday, said the conflict has been “very difficult for the city.”
Maples, who lost an earlier bid for mayor, said he ran to bring “a little more unity to the city council, to unify them and make them a stronger council for the city," saying he wanted to do more for Camilla's senior citizens.
But Pollard said he plans to run again for city office.
“We were able to get some great things done for the city of Camilla, especially for our youth,” Pollard said of his time as councilman.
FILE - Stickers lay on a table inside a polling place, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)
Barcelona and Inter Milan won again in the Champions League on Wednesday though both former title holders are looking up in the standings toward upstart newcomer Brest.
Aston Villa started the week atop the 36-team table but its winning run ended after a bizarre penalty was awarded when defender Tyrone Mings picked up the ball in the area at Club Brugge, resulting in a 1-0 loss that sent the English club plummeting to eighth place.
Paris Saint-Germain, in its first season without Kylian Mbappé, trails far behind in 25th after Atletico Madrid scored in stoppage time to seal a 2-1 win for the Spanish team at Parc des Princes.
Barcelona’s blistering scoring form continued in a 5-2 win at Red Star Belgrade — a seventh straight win since the start of October at a rate of four goals per game. Robert Lewandowski scored twice and has 21 this season.
Inter Milan stifled Arsenal in a 1-0 win at San Siro sealed by Hakan Çalhanoğlu’s penalty in first-half stoppage time.
Inter is unbeaten on 10 points and in fifth place, one below Brest which won 2-1 at Sparta Prague. The French debutant looks sure to advance to the knockout phase starting in February.
Atalanta won 2-0 at Stuttgart to stay unbeaten on eight points and Salzburg got its first goals and points in a 3-1 win at Feyenoord.
Bayern Munich won 1-0 at home to Benfica in a game that was delayed 15 minutes by crowd congestion and then was played in a muted atmosphere because of a medical incident for a fan.
Shakhtar Donetsk playmaker Heorhiy Sudakov had a fine assist and an even better goal in a 2-1 win for the Ukrainian champion against Young Boys. Shakhtar’s No. 10 showed why he is expected to be the club’s next big-money sale.
Liverpool, which on Tuesday routed Bayer Leverkusen 4-0, leads the standings at the midway point of the eight-round program.
Liverpool is the only team with four straight wins, while five teams have four losses. They are Leipzig, Sturm Graz, Young Boys, Red Star and Slovan Bratislava.
Two Italian teams – Inter Milan and Atalanta – have yet to concede a goal in four games. Another Italian side, Bologna, is the only team with no goals scored.
Villa had led the standings in the new league-phase format after three straight wins without conceding a goal — and it took a bizarre incident before goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez was eventually beaten.
Mings was punished for picking up the ball when Martínez seemed to restart play with a goal kick passed forward to his teammate. Mings walked a couple steps to gather the ball with his left hand and returned to place it in the six-yard box.
"It’s the biggest mistake I witnessed in my career,” Villa coach Unai Emery said. “It has only happened one time in all my life. Today.”
Brugge captain Hans Vanaken placed the 52nd-minute spot-kick to Martínez's left as the World Cup-winning Argentina goalkeeper dived to his right.
It was the standout result of the inaugural week of the new Champions League in September: Bayern Munich 9, Dinamo Zagreb 2.
It was the first time a team had scored nine times in a game in the 32-year Champions League era, and Dinamo fired its coach two days later.
Since then? Bayern lost twice, including a 4-1 rout at Barcelona, and Dinamo won twice. At the end of play Wednesday, Bayern was 17th on six points, one place below Dinamo on seven. If those placings hold until January, they meet again twice more in the knockout playoffs round.
The fifth round in three weeks' time has perhaps the stellar attraction of 144 games in the league phase: Liverpool vs. Real Madrid.
That game on Nov. 27 is a rematch of the 2022 and 2018 finals, both won by Madrid, and the 1981 European Cup title match that Liverpool won.
There is another final rematch: Bayern Munich hosts PSG on Nov. 26 in a repeat of the pandemic-season final played in August 2020 without fans in Lisbon. Also, sixth-place Barcelona hosts Brest, a fixture which might have been overlooked when the draw was made in August yet the French team is currently fourth.
Only the top eight teams in January advance directly to the round of 16 in March.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Brugge's Andreas Skov Olsen, left, and Aston Villa's Youri Tielemans fight for the ball during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Club Brugge and Aston Villa at Jan Breydelstadion in Bruges, Belgium, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Brugge's Ferran Jutgla, background, makes an attempt to score as Aston Villa's Tyrone Mings defends during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Club Brugge and Aston Villa at Jan Breydelstadion in Bruges, Belgium, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Shakhtar's Oleksandr Zubkov, centre, challenges for the ball with Young Boys' Lewin Blum during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Shakhtar Donetsk and Young Boys Bern at the Arena AufSchalke in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
Young Boys' Kastriot Imeri celebrates after scoring his side's opening goal during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Shakhtar Donetsk and Young Boys Bern at the Arena AufSchalke in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
Shakhtar's Oleksandr Zubkov scores against Young Boys' goalkeeper Marvin Keller during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Shakhtar Donetsk and Young Boys Bern at the Arena AufSchalke in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Wednesday Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
Shakhtar's Oleksandr Zubkov, centre, scores his side's opening goal during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Shakhtar Donetsk and Young Boys Bern at the Arena AufSchalke in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
Brugge's Christos Tzolis, left, stops Aston Villa's Ezri Konsa during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Club Brugge and Aston Villa at Jan Breydelstadion in Bruges, Belgium, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Brugge's goalkeeper Simon Mignolet celebrates after the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Club Brugge and Aston Villa at Jan Breydelstadion in Bruges, Belgium, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. Brugge won the match 1-0. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Shakhtar's Heorhiy Sudakov scores his side's second goal against Young Boys' goalkeeper Marvin Keller during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Shakhtar Donetsk and Young Boys Bern at the Arena AufSchalke in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Wednesday Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
Shakhtar's Heorhiy Sudakov celebrates after scoring his side's second goal during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Shakhtar Donetsk and Young Boys Bern at the Arena AufSchalke in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
Aston Villa's head coach Unai Emery watches the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Club Brugge and Aston Villa at Jan Breydelstadion in Bruges, Belgium, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Brugge's Hans Vanaken, left, celebrates with teammates after scoring a penalty his side's first goal, during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Club Brugge and Aston Villa at Jan Breydelstadion in Bruges, Belgium, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
