A plan to close most polling places in a predominantly black Georgia county ahead of November’s midterm elections is drawing opposition from the state’s gubernatorial candidates and voting rights activists, who claim blatant voter suppression.
The two-member local elections board is expected to vote Friday on a proposal to shutter seven of nine polling sites in rural Randolph county, in south-west Georgia, where roughly 60% of the 7,800 residents are black – twice the statewide rate.
“We’re very concerned because the racial impact is obvious and they have yet to come up with a good reason for these closures,” said Sean J Young, legal director of the Georgia American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The board members have said the voting sites violate federal disabilities law because they are not wheelchair accessible, a defense that cuts little ice with Young.
“You don’t help persons with disabilities by removing the number of locations at which they might possibly be able to vote,” Young said.
He added that the Georgia ACLU and the county commissioner’s office offered to work with the county to solve compliance issues and were not taken up on the offer.
The seven polling places concerned have been used as recently as July, when the state held its primary runoff election. Todd Black, the county’s elections director, did not respond on Monday to calls or an email seeking comment.
Both Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee seeking to become the first female African American governor in US history, and Republican Brian Kemp, who is white and is Georgia’s secretary of state, urged county officials to drop the plan.
“Although state law gives localities broad authority in setting precinct boundaries and polling locations,” Kemp said in a statement, “we strongly urged local officials to abandon this effort and focus on preparing for a secure, accessible, and fair election for voters this November.”
In a presentation to county residents, however, the consultant who developed the plan cited Kemp as a supporter.
“Consolidation has come highly recommended by the secretary of state and is already being adopted by several counties and is being seriously considered and being worked on by many more,” Mike Malone, a consultant hired by the elections board, said according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Voting rights could become a flashpoint in the governor’s race, as Abrams seeks to turn out African American voters in rural areas, particularly in a series of counties known as the “Black Belt”, mostly south of Atlanta.
She has said Kemp is an architect of voter suppression, an accusation he has denied.
“Every Georgian in every county deserves to have their voice represented at the voting booth and in our government,” said Abrams, a former Democratic house minority leader in the state legislature and founder of the New Georgia Project, a voting rights group.
Kemp has accused that group of voter fraud, which it denied.
The Washington-based Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law sent a letter to the Randolph county elections board on Sunday, threatening to sue if the closures go ahead.
“We are deeply troubled by this proposal which would impair the ability of African Americans, particularly in low-income areas, to reach the polls,” Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee, said on Monday.
Clarke said some of the proposed closures are in areas with little or no public transportation, and would thereby leave voters miles from voting sites with no realistic way of reaching them.
Young, of the ACLU, said Randolph county residents were three times less likely than the average Georgian to own a vehicle.
“If you live in one of these places where the polling location was closed,” he said, “that’s a three-and-a-half-hour walk to your new polling place, if you don’t have a car.”
