A Muscogee elections board plan to consolidate some Columbus voting precincts is a scheme to keep minorities from voting in Columbus, because minority voters are now the majority.
That’s what Georgia State Conference NAACP President Edward DuBose writes in a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice, which is reviewing the board’s proposed precinct consolidation plan.
DuBose says the proposal submitted to the Justice Department was never given to the local NAACP branch for review, and, “we regard the county’s failure to share this public information with the community in a timely fashion one of many points of evidence of a racially discriminatory purpose underlying the consolidation of precincts.”
The county’s board of elections, on which three of the five members are black, says it proposed cutting the number of local voting precincts from 48 to 28 to save money, to satisfy school district requests that polls be removed from schools for student safety and voter access, to adjust to a trend of more voters casting ballots before election day, and to redistribute “express polls,” which by pinpointing an individual voter’s ballot through a computer database speed the voting process.
Writes DuBose: “Although we have not seen a submission and the arguments the county is putting forward, we already know key facts that point clearly to a racial motivation for the consolidation of voting precincts….”
The motivation is to reduce minority voting strength because minorities now are the majority in Columbus, DuBose writes: “White persons no longer are a majority of the registered voters in Muscogee County. The strong voter registration majority they held as recently as the 2006 elections is gone and their relative strength is shrinking. Continuing white control of the county government increasingly will depend on a white advantage in voter turnout…. The consolidations will bear more heavily on African-American and Latino voters who have less access to cars than white voters. It will interfere significantly with get out the vote efforts by our organization and others.”
Nancy Boren, Muscogee’s elections director, has noted that if churches or other organizations are providing voters with election-day transportation, then they more easily could take voters to a centralized poll than to several polls scattered over the same area.
Though no more than 40 people turned out for a public meeting on the precinct changes last week, and some favored the plan, DuBose says that since the consolidation proposal became more widely publicized, “there has been a storm of protest over the consolidations.”
He also says the city did not in a timely manner respond to a Feb. 3 open records request seeking copies of what it submitted to the Justice Department.
The city received three inquiries on the subject from C.A. Hardmon, who calls himself “Brother Love.” Beyond a copy of the Justice Department submission, Hardmon wanted the names and races of all poll workers – a subject in which those opposing precinct consolidation lately have shown a particular interest.
In responding to DuBose’s complaint, Assistant City Attorney Jaimie DeLoach wrote: “My records indicate that you sent three requests concerning the Board of Elections. I have one sent at 7:46 p.m. on February 3, 2010, a response to which was due on February 9, 2010…. The written response was sent one day beyond the three business day limit, i.e. on February 10, 2010. I apologize for this delay. However, the documents were available at the Board of Elections on February 9, 2010, and were not picked up by Mr. Hailes until February 24, 2010.”
The latter reference is to Wane Hailes, who heads a local biweekly publication called “The Courier.” While covering a Feb. 4 elections board meeting, Hailes announced that he was against precinct consolidation and thought the board should drop the plan.
Hardmon told DeLoach his seeking the name and race of each poll worker was not an open records request, merely a question. DeLoach replied that getting such information required running a computer program as it was not readily available.
In concluding his letter to the Justice Department, DuBose writes: “These facts, in the context of the rise of minority voting strength in Muscogee County and the white population’s recent loss of their once secure voter registration dominance, make it all too clear that the proposed consolidations are designed to reduce minority political influence and deny minority voters an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect representatives of their choice.”
The Georgia Secretary of State now tracks voter demographics primarily by “active voters,” those most likely to vote. As of Monday, the state’s statistics showed that of active voters in Columbus, 46,881 were white, 45,735 were black, 1,802 were Hispanic, 1,032 were Asian, and 20 were American Indian.
DuBose did not immediately return a call seeking more information on his letter.
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