Candidate Voting Record, Crime Stats

Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026

Good Morning! In the news today: Georgia’s secretary of state investigates a state House candidate; police chiefs deliver public safety update; and Coastal Georgia risks becoming a debate-free zone. Finally, we note some things you may have missed. Questions, comments, or story ideas? You can reach me at craig.thecurrent@gmail.com.In the new

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NEWS: ELECTIONS

‘That is not what happens’

David Dillie, the Democratic candidate for state House District 161, is under investigation by Georgia’s secretary of state over allegations he voted in two state primaries this year, a violation of state law, The Current’s Margaret Coker reports.

Dillie, a 24-year-old mechanic for Gulfstream who lives in Effingham County, has denied the accusation, first reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, that he voted in both Georgia’s May primary and a month later in a primary in Nevada, where he lived before returning to southeastern Georgia in 2024.

Dillie, a third-generation Georgian, blamed youth and inexperience for the potential legal trouble. Under Georgia law, double-voting is a felony punishable with imprisonment and a fine.

“I thought when you moved, your stuff gets canceled. That is not what happens,” Dillie told The Current GA.

Dillie is challenging Republican state lawmaker Bill Hitchens for the seat he has held since 2012 representing parts of Effingham, Bryan and Chatham counties. His outsider status helped him gain traction among voters amid widespread anger at established Republican leaders over the planned $20 billion OpenAI data center near Rincon.

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NEWS: PUBLIC SAFETY

Police chiefs: Violent crime down, fraud up

Violent crime in Savannah is trending downward and fraud scams in Chatham County are increasing, the city and county’s police chiefs told some 70 county residents on Sunday, The Current’s Adithi Vimalanathan reports.

Yet in the approximately half-hour briefing and discussion at the St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church, hosted by the NAACP’s Savannah Branch, the police chiefs — Lenny Gunther of Savannah and Jeff Hadley of Chatham County — provided only snapshots on the state of public safety and took only two questions from the audience. 

Missing from the discussion were topics top of many residents’ minds: Flock and other surveillance technology deployed by area police departments and the wave of shootings that have voters on edge.

When asked by a reporter about a shooting along West Bay Street on Saturday night, Gunther noted that there were no injuries and that his officers were working to identify the individuals involved.

The West Bay Street shooting incident was one of three such incidents over the weekend. There were similar incidents on Live Oak Street and Crescent Drive. 

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NEWS: POLITICS

Debate-free zone?

Is Coastal Georgia destined to be a debate-free zone in this election cycle?

At the moment, it seems so. In the region’s marquee race for the open congressional seat to succeed Buddy Carter, Amanda Hollowell, a Democrat, is agreeable to a debate or candidate forum. So far, however, Jim Kingston, the Republican nominee, so far hasn’t committed to either.

The possibility of a debate or forum for the contestants in another prominent Coastal Georgia race — the state Senate contest between incumbent Republican Ben Watson and Democratic challenger Corey Foreman — is also uncertain.

There are organizations who have a proven track record of hosting candidate debates and forums with fairness and decorum — the League of Women Voters of Coastal Georgia, the Savannah Dialogue, WSAV-TV, and WTOC-TV, to name some. They stand ready to provide their good offices.

All of us are familiar with the politics of debates, starting with the conventional wisdom that incumbents and those candidates leading in the polls or insecure about their speaking skills aren’t inclined to give their opponents the oxygen of a shared stage. But it’s ultimately a conceit, with both voters and accountability the casualties.

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NEWS: UPDATES

ICYMI

• WWII veteran Walter Okrongley, 102, is honored with France’s Legion of Honor at a ceremony at the at the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force in Pooler, The Current’s Justin Taylor reports.
• Glynn County’s Rachael Thompson knows firsthand the challenges facing independent candidates in a state where 28 percent of the state’s 8.2 million voters describe themselves as independents or nonpartisan, The Current’s Jabari Gibbs reports.
• Ahead of midterm elections, Chatham, Glynn and Liberty County election officials will gather Oct. 7 at 6 p.m. at Memorial Stadium’s conference room at 101 John J. Scott Drive in Savannah to discuss what voters should know about the voting system and election security in the runup to the November elections.
• State Sen. Mike Hodges, who represents six Coastal Georgia counties, including Camden County, tells the Tribune & Georgian he intends to “continue serving” while receiving treatment for pancreatic cancer. The two-term lawmaker, a Republican, is running unopposed in the Nov. 3 elections.
• U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter and 1st District congressional candidate Jim Kingston lead the host committee for a meet-and-greet with U.S. Senate candidate Mike Collins today (Tuesday) from 4-6 p.m. at the Marshside Grill, 1200 Glynn Ave. in Brunswick.
• Savannah Alderwoman Bernetta Lanier (District 1) will host a town hall meeting (today) Tuesday, starting at 6 p.m. at Moses Jackson Community Center Cafeteria, 1410 Richards St. in Savannah. Residents of Hudson Hill, Woodville, and West Savannah are invited to discuss parks and recreation projects in the community.
• Rural voters’ frustrations about the cost of living in their community are growing and appear to be chipping away at Republicans’ enthusiasm to vote as the midterm elections near, a new KFF/Associated Press (AP) Survey of Rural Voters finds.
• The Trump administration’s whole-of-government effort to find and prosecute noncitizens illegally on state voter rolls has resulted in about 1,600 voter fraud cases that have led to 160 arrests, a senior Department of Homeland Security official says. The number of cases falls far short of the hundreds of thousands of noncitizen voters that the administration had previously suggested were on the rolls. They also represent a tiny fraction of the nation’s more than 211 million active registered voters.
• ICE is wasting tens of millions of dollars on ‘uninformed’ detention projects, a report by the U.S. General Accounting Office, a congressional watchdog, finds.
• News from the airwaves: “Paid for by the U.S. government”: Taxpayer-funded pro-Trump TV ads defended as “public service announcements.”
• In the “what-was-he-thinking?” department: An AI-generated clip posted by a White House official receives some scathing reviews from administration critics. “GOP closing argument,” one says. “This is precisely the midterm messaging the GOP needs from the Deputy White House Chief of Staff,” says another. Then there’s “these people make Marie Antoinette look connected to the people and empathetic by comparison.”

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