LaVista Hills cityhood supporters prepared Saturday for the possibility of contesting the election in court and asked disenfranchised voters to contact them.
Proving that residents were denied their right to vote would be important to LaVista Hills' potential legal action, which must be filed within five days after the election was certified Friday, according to Georgia law.
The proposed city of LaVista Hills fell 136 votes short in Tuesday's referendum — less than 1 percent of all votes cast, according to the county's election tally.
The cityhood referendum is also being investigated by Secretary of State Brian Kemp and the GBI after an elections supervisor alleged there were irregularities and unsecured voting materials.
“The truth has to come out,” said Mary Kay Woodworth, president of the LaVista Hills Alliance, at a press conference Saturday. “What we’ve told our supporters is to take a deep breath, hold on to your yard signs and stay tuned. It’s uncharted territory here.”
LaVista Hills Alliance has retained the law firm of Chalmers Pak & Burch as it decides how to move forward.
Woodworth said her group has been swamped by complaints that voters were refused ballots even though they were registered to vote at their address, absentee ballots were never sent to military personnel, poll workers made disparaging comments about LaVista Hills in front of voters and doors were locked at one precinct.
Kevin Levitas, a LaVista Hills supporter, said DeKalb County’s elections office shouldn’t have been so quick to assert that there wasn’t any fraud involved.
“That immediately raised some questions with me,” he said. “For somebody to predetermine and guarantee that there were no violations when they couldn’t possibly know the world of evidence at this point, I thought was inappropriate.”
The city of LaVista Hills would have included more than 67,000 residents in a region from outside Emory University to the eastern edge of Interstate 285.
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