In Randolph County, Ga., a proposal that would have impaired citizens’ voting rights was shot down on Friday. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the proposal would have closed seven voting precincts, forcing voters without cars to walk 10 miles to the next closest precinct. Whether by circumstance or intent, the affected voters would have primarily been African-American, and lived in an area where Clinton took 55 percent of the vote back in 2016.
The AJC’s report goes on to explain the reasoning for the closures; apparently, the affected precincts were not accessible to the disabled. So, naturally, those precincts would be totally shut down without replacement. Poll workers themselves disagreed with this argument, believing the sites to be more than accommodating for all voters.
NAACP national board of directors member Edward DuBose told the AJC he’s thankful for the victory over voter suppression, but warns that this echoes a larger truth about the issue across the entire state. As midterms loom ahead and the stakes rise, tactics like this appear more and more. The proposer, Mike Malone, has since been fired from his position in assisting to manage local elections.