“The suppression of voters in Georgia remains to be alive right this moment.”

The Georgia State Patrol charged Cannon with two crimes: obstructing law enforcement and interrupting General Assembly sessions. If convicted, she could be imprisoned for up to eight years.

A Georgia State Patrol lieutenant said in an incident report that memories of the January 6th Uprising at the US Capitol were “in the back of my mind” when he arrested Cannon. He said he was concerned that other protesters would have been “encouraged” to follow Cannon’s lead if he hadn’t arrested her after she refused his request not to answer the door of Kemp’s private office on the second floor of the Georgia Capitol to knock.

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Another official said he was in Kemp’s office when an agent told him “the crowd was trying to break through the wooden doors” Cannon knocked on.

However, witnesses interviewed by the Atlanta Journal Constitution said there was no attempt to “break through” the door.

“Nobody touched that door. We didn’t go anywhere near that door. We followed the cops who took Park into the elevator, ”said Tamara Stevens, an activist who was with Cannon and filmed the encounter. “There was no attempt to break through the door.”

The Georgia Constitution states that lawmakers “shall be free from arrest during the sessions of the General Assembly,” other than charges of treason, crime, or violation of the peace.

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David Dreyer, one of the attorneys representing Cannon, believes Cannon will be “confirmed”. Dreyer, who is also a Democratic State representative from Atlanta, has some experience with lawmakers arrested at the Georgia Capitol.

Dreyer represented then Senator Nikema Williams when she was arrested on similar charges in 2018 during a protest asking officials to count all absent and tentative ballots before Kemp was declared victorious in a narrow governor election.

The charges were later dropped, and Williams, now a member of the US House of Representatives, filed a federal lawsuit to prevent further application of the law that arrested her.

Cannon said the physical and emotional pain of her arrest continues, but her focus is on continuing to fight laws like SB 202.

“When I see the photo of Kemp, strategically positioned beneath a nefarious painting of a plantation in South Georgia, flanked by a group of six white lawmakers, all male, in the stroke of a pen, I am reminded of the importance of getting on focus on the problem at hand, ”she said. “The electoral repression in Georgia is still alive today.”