VOTER SUPPRESSION: ALIVE & WELL IN GEORGIA

…Stacey Abrams, the Democratic Candidate for Georgia Governor

Imagine, not being able to vote because a rest room wasn’t ADA compliant.

Is the GOP in Georgia worried that because more of their black citizens are voting today, Georgia could actually become a very purple state.  And that they could actually elect a black, female, Democratic governor?

Well, in the rural Randolph County, where 60% of its residents are black and nearly a third live in poverty, that county had gone for Hillary by 11 points.

So what are the Republicans planning to do about Randolph County?

Well, the Republican Secretary of State, Brian Kemp, recommended an ADA consultant to the county, a Mr. Mike Malone.   He recommended at a public meeting that 78% of the counties polling places needed to be closed as they were not ADA compliant.

But, if that’s the case, why was it that the election officials didn’t fret about any ADA compliance during the May primaries and the runoffs, just last month…?

What “non-compliance” meant was that elderly or disabled voters would actually have to park and walk on grass to get to the polls, or that the rest rooms had no railings next to the toilets.  Malone made it clear that the polling places must be ADA compliant.

Of course, it is totally a coincidence that Malone had made a $250 donation to Kemp’s election campaign.

For those voters in Randolph County, they will now be required to drive up to 30 miles round trip to one of the only two remaining election precincts.

Oh, and it’s also a coincidence that the male Republican gubernatorial nominee is against the Democrat, Stacey Abrams, who just happens to be a popular, black, female candidate.

Many of those present at the public meeting expressed suspicion that the election officials’ motive wasn’t concern for the disabled, but rather the suppressing the African American voters.

Of course, Malone assured them that this was the “farthest thing from the fact.”

Gosh, why would anybody suspect such a thing?

Andrew Young, head of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia (ACLU), which is fighting the Randolph proposal, said poll consolidation is just one item “in their voter-suppression tool kit” that also includes purging voter rolls, which Secretary Kemp has done, plus their stricter Voter-ID laws.

But while different techniques can keep casual voters away, “poll closing gets at faithful voters,” Young said, “because it disrupts their habit of how they vote.” The ACLU successfully fought a similar plan last year in another Georgia county.

These are all flagrant examples of the expansion of voter suppression nationwide, which was aggravated by the very conservative Supreme Court’s 2013 weakening of the Voting Rights Act.

The county had no plans for cull polling places before Malone had appeared. Several months ago, when county elections chairman Scott Peavy had an opening for an elections supervisor, he called the secretary of state’s office, and the Republican elections director, Chris Harvey, a Kemp lieutenant, “gave me Mr. Malone’s information”.

A two-member county elections board will rule on the proposal this week.

Malone, at the public meeting, told residents: “I recommended to the board that they seriously consider the consolidation of the polling places.” He justified this option based on the cost, not on ADA compliance.

And it must be noted that the Republican official’s e-mails have shown that they were working on the precinct-elimination plan for months.  However they now say there’s no time to fix the ADA compliance violations.

And to top it off, Atlanta’s WXIA station reports that, Malone had previously reduced polling places in two majority-white counties, by 20% and 33% vs. Randolph’s 78%.

Yes, in Georgia, voter suppression is alive and well.

Copyright G.Ater  2018