Civil Rights Groups Target Majority-Black Georgia County Seeking to Shutter Most Polling Places

Civil Rights Groups Target Majority-Black Georgia County Seeking to Shutter Most Polling Places
The county plans to close seven of nine polling locations ahead of the November elections.
Pema Levy
Aug. 20, 2018 1:26 PM


Civil rights groups are mobilizing to block a majority-black Georgia county from shuttering seven of its nine polling locations for the November elections, alleging that the plan by the county election board is racially motivated voter suppression. The closures would come just before a high-stakes midterm election in which Stacey Abrams, a black woman, is the Democratic nominee for governor.

“This is nothing more than a racially motivated, voter suppression scheme that aims to lock Black voters out of a historic election cycle,” Kristen Clarke, who leads the Lawyers’ Committee on Civil Rights Under Law, tweeted on Sunday. The Lawyers’ Committee, representing three Georgia civil rights groups, sent a letter to the Randolph County Board of Elections and Registration threatening legal action if the plan moves forward.

Closing all but two voting sites would make it logistically difficult for many voters, especially the county’s many low-income residents, to cast a ballot. Some residents would have to travel more than 10 miles to vote in a county that lacks public transportation. According to the Census Bureau, the county is more than 60 percent black, and 30 percent of residents live in poverty, nearly twice Georgia’s 16 percent statewide poverty rate.

Last week, the Georgia chapter of the ACLU likewise threatened legal action against the county. In a letter, the group pointed out that the transportation difficulties of reaching a polling location would fall disproportionately on the county’s poor, black, rural voters. “When polling place configurations or closures have such a starkly disproportionate impact on racial minorities or lower-income rural voters without transportation, such closures almost certainly constitute a violation of the Voting Rights Act or the United States Constitution,” the letter warned.

The ACLU’s letter argued that the timing of the closures was “suspicious.” All nine precincts were open for the primaries this spring, as well as last month’s runoff in the GOP primary for governor. Shuttering most of those locations in November would cause confusion and likely disenfranchise many voters who show up to vote, only to discover their precinct is closed. Moreover, limiting all of the county’s residents to two precincts would almost certainly cause long lines in this fall’s highly anticipated midterms. Abrams is running to be the nation’s first black female governor, and her candidacy is likely to boost African American turnout.

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https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/08/civil-rights-groups-target-majority-black-georgia-county-seeking-to-shutter-most-polling-places/