Republican activist sues Chatham Board of Elections

Conservative Republican activist Beth Majeroni has sued the Chatham County Board of Elections, its chairman, and two Chatham County police officers, alleging that her free-speech rights were violated when she was forcibly removed from a board meeting last year.

The widely publicized incident vaulted Majeroni to prominence among conservatives statewide and was a focus of her unsuccessful bid to unseat incumbent state Sen. Ben Watson in May’s District 1 Republican primary race. 

Majeroni, a retired pharmacy executive and Skidaway Island resident, filed the 14-count complaint in federal court in Savannah last week. The case could challenge the county’s parameters to limit public comments at official meetings and the role police officers play in keeping order at such gatherings.

She alleges that her removal from the July 10, 2023, elections board meeting was “retaliation” for her efforts to uncover what she suspected as voting irregularities in the May 2022 primary elections, in which she served as a poll watcher.

The complaint says that the board’s chairman, Thomas Mahoney III, a Savannah-area lawyer, singled out Majeroni for retribution because she had succeeded in getting a county grand jury to address her frustrated pursuit of election-related records from the board and its supervisor, Billy Wooten, under Georgia’s Open Records Act.

Mahoney and the two officers who carried the 68-year-old Majeroni hands-and-feet from the hearing room, Andrew Nizwantowski and Robert Santoro, are blamed in the 29-page court filing of “actual malice” and “intent to cause Majeroni harm and injury,” despite the “unequivocal knowledge” that she had not “engaged in any unlawful — or even disrespectful — conduct.”

As a result, the complaint says, Majeroni “suffered a loss of liberty, reputational damage, humiliation, and emotional distress.” The lawsuit, filed by two Atlanta law firms on Majeroni’s behalf, demands a jury trial and unspecified monetary damages.

‘Malice and intent to cause harm and injury’

Chatham County spokesman Will Peebles said Monday the county has no comment on the lawsuit. No trial date has been set.

The outcome of the case could turn in part on whether a set of guidelines prepared by the board in advance of the meeting for those attendees wishing to speak during the public-comment period had the force of law.

Those guidelines, which county officials said were approved by the county attorney, set a three-minute time limit on statements and barred any comments of a “quasi-judicial (‘court like’) nature,” which would appear to include grand-jury matters.

The complaint argues those comments qualify as protected speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The case could be affected by Georgia’s qualified immunity law that limits legal liability for law enforcement officers actions performed in the line of duty. 

The public-comment period at the July meeting was expected to be dominated by demands from local critics of Georgia’s voting system that the state’s electronic voting machines be replaced by paper ballots. Amid worries among state and local officials about harassment of election workers and threats of violence, police officers were assigned to provide security.

The complaint accuses the two police officers of false arrest, false imprisonment and battery, saying they acted with “malice” and “intent to cause Majeroni harm and injury.”

In a statement two days after the incident, the Chatham County Police Department said Majeroni was removed at Mahoney’s request and after she refused to leave the podium so the meeting could continue.

It was only when she continued to ignore the officers’ commands and sat on the floor that officers carried her from the premises, the statement said, adding that while the officers had a right to arrest her under the circumstances, they didn’t.

The lawyers representing Majeroni in the case are Rachel Berlin Benjamin of Beal, Sutherland, Berlin & Brown, and Jonathan Grunberg of Wade, Grunberg & Wilson.

She’s also being represented in the case by the Orlando, Fla.-based Paquin Public Relations firm.