Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Fines related to jail sentences make the right to vote unaffordable for millions of formerly incarcerated people. Nationwide, nearly 21,000 polling stations have closed since 2016, a VICE News investigation has found. Other political science studies find that policies that increase the time it takes to vote (or in the amount of information needed to figure out where and how to vote) make it harder for voters to cast ballots. Just over half of the closures are part of a push toward centralized, countywide polling places, called vote centers, which exist in almost a third of US states. CHARLESTON, S.C. The First in the South Democratic primary will not have all of its precinct voting locations open on February 29. Greenville County closed down 52 precincts; most of those precincts will be consolidated and some will be shifted into temporary locations, but instead of 151 polling locations, Greenville County will have only 118. Closing and consolidating polling sites are among the voter-suppression strategies that have gone unregulated since the 2013 Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder. Considering that population boom, why do you think the state closed 44 percent of the countys polling places in that same time period? The state has also been considered reliably Republican, but saw a Democrat win statewide office for the first time in decades in 2018. And, remember, these tactics only come into play because more traditional methods are failing. The closures are approved at various levels in government depending on the state, and justification for closing polling stations can vary as well. According to the American Community Survey, only about 33 percent of households in Lincoln County own a vehicle. Across the metro area, more than 80 voting locations had been closed or. Randolph County has a two-member election board that was expected to vote Friday on whether to shutter the polling stations. Legal Statement. Whenever you close down polling places it makes it that much more difficult to vote, LaShawn Warren, the vice president of campaigns for the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, told The Independent. Over 100 polling places have closed in several key swing states this election cycle thanks to aggressive prosecutions by the Department of Justice over accommodations for people with disabilities. In a first, House Democrats elected a Black leader. Our staffing is fine for what weve got going on in the locations, provided we dont have any 50 percent turnout of registered voters we ought to be good, Belangia said. Tennessee Polling times are set by each individual county. The fallout of the Shelby decision was immediate. You do not have a specific time in which you must turn up. Longer lines also severely affect voters with disabilities, making it difficult to stand or wait in public for extended periods of time. The South Carolina Progressive Network will be surveying people outside of consolidated precinct stations on Election Day to gauge how this change affects voters, in addition to rapid response available through the voter hotline and the election monitoring teams from the ACLU and the Legal Defense Fund. Does public transportation run to the new location? How is that after the Voting Rights Act of 1965? Reducing access to the polls effectively reduces access to democracy for some of the most marginalized groups in the United States: voters of color, voters with disabilities and low-income voters. In those states that conduct elections by mail, there are postmark deadlines and deadlines by which voters can drop off their ballots in person. Until recently, it was rarely enforced on polling places, which are sometimes held in private spaces like churches. Mike Ludwigis a staff reporter atTruthoutbased in New Orleans. Fixes can sometimes be as simple as using orange cones to outline accessible parking spaces or improving signage. Voter suppression started way before Jim Crow. And activists argue that low turnout at a particular polling place is not a reason to close it it is a sign that the turnout itself, which is typically lower in Latinx neighborhoods, must be addressed. Brazoria county, south of Houston, closed almost 60% of its polling locations between 2012 and 2018, causing it to fall below the statutory minimum, along with another county. Polling stations are set to open throughout the day of the Bristol Mayor Referendum in 2022. Plenty of research has shown that voting restrictions disproportionally impact lower-income voters and people of color who are more likely to lean Democratic and already face frequent obstacles to voting, such as long wait times at the polls. Despite decades of opposition, the university still holds over 9,000 Native remains -- a source of grief for tribes. Similar arguments are used to justify other targeted voter suppression efforts like photo ID requirements, felon lists, and voter roll purges. Consolidating polling stations is a regular occurrence in South Carolina, and Greenville has already planned to do it for the first four elections of this year. Your name will not be on the roster at any other location. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! part 4 mobile polling. A White man was scared to death of Ralph Yarl. Mary Duty, chair of the McLennan County Democratic party, has soured on the centralization program since the county entered it in 2014. Georgias Black voters have the opportunity to elect Stacey Abrams, who could become the nations first female African-American governor. Copyright 2023 | The American Prospect, Inc. | All Rights Reserved, The Alt-Labor Chronicles: Americas Worker Centers, South Carolina Closing Poll Stations Without Notice. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. The Senate failed to restore this voting rights protection. Many people with disabilities are unable to drive, Bishop said, so moving their nearest polling place further away sometimes imposes a larger burden on them.. Long considered a Republican bastion, changing racial demographics in the state have caused leading Democrats to recast Texas as a potential swing state. While the Obama administration pursued systemic cases involving large numbers of people affected by disability rights violations in schools and institutions, these cases have disappeared under Trump. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more Fox News politics content. Indeed, election officials have cited the ADA as a reason for poll closures across the country, to the dismay of disabilities and civil right groups who say the ADA is being used as a smokescreen for voter suppression. Its simply not true that the party would behave like Republicans if the shoe were on the other foot, and the proof is that there isnt any effort to figure out ways to selectively target the Republican vote in places where that would benefit the Democrats. Select your state: Every person who shares helps us reach three more voters. Voters in South Carolina still, even as of this very moment, are faced with voter suppression and disenfranchisement, said Dr. Brenda C. Williams, CEO of the non-profit The Family Unit in Sumter, South Carolina. Shutting out parolees from the two most basic civic institutions, the jury and the ballot, threatens democracy. 10 a.m. Polling stations are now open across Toronto for the mayoral byelection. If that trend holds through January, the last four years will be the first presidential term without a Voting Rights Act case since Congress passed the law in its amended form in 1982. Heres what that means. Guardian analysis finds that places where black and Latino population is growing by the largest numbers experienced the majority of closures and could benefit Republicans. Even in those states that had elections by mail, voters had an option to drop off their ballots in-person by a certain time.Many states permitted voters who were in line by closing time to cast a ballot, but that provision also varied by jurisdiction. We believe these threats to shut down polling sites violate both the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution, Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law,told NewsOne. Until 2013, hundreds of counties and nine states, including Texas, with a history of severe voter suppression had to submit any changes they wanted to make to their election systems to the Department of Justice under the Voting Rights Act. In our view, access to polling places is a key element of citizens' right to vote. The 334 poll closures between 2012 and 2018 that took place outside the vote center program would by themselves still rank Texas among the biggest poll closers in the country, ahead of Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi. 1 Many polling places close one hour earlier. She had previously run for congress as an independent in 2014 but was unsuccessful, One of the younger candidates, Swalwell has served on multiple committees in the House of Representatives. The Department of Justice declined to comment. A 2020 study found that in the 2016 election, a one-mile increase in distance to a polling place reduced by 19 percent the voter turnout from districts with a high proportion of minority residents. Those concerned with antisemitism must understand what it truly means to challenge it as part of movements for justice. Then there is McLennan County, Texas, where 26 percent of voters are Latino and 15 percent are Black, according to Beth Stevens, voting rights program director at the Texas Civil Rights Project. Dont miss any of TMCs smart analysis! According to a study from the civil rights group the Leadership Conference . He also highlighted the fact that he won the governor's seat in a red [Republican] state, The New Jersey Senator has focused on restoring kindness and civility in American politics throughout his campaign, though he has failed to secure the same level of support and fundraising as several other senators running for the White House in 2020, Mayor of the city of Miramar in the Miami metropolitan area, Wayne Messam said he intended to run on a progressive platform against the "broken" federal government. But even investigations that dont yield formal settlements can result in polling place closures. They do not engage is systemic efforts to selectively discourage Republican voters from participating in our elections. Guardian graphic | Source: The Leadership Conference Education Fund.
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