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3/28/2021 6:06:07 PM

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Section 5: States
Subject: Voter Suppression Msg# 1118394

From:

Ed Moran

Joined 12/31/2005

To:

Jim Matthews (Read)

Joined 6/10/2008

And yet more African Americans voted in the Abrams/Kemp gubernatorial than ever before and the recent presidential number was even higher for that group than the previous election. Your second reference was written before the Abrams election and decried the possible effect on persons of color by the closures. Seems it didn't happen...when all the votes were in. She got more Black votes cast than had ever been cast before by that group.

Neither reference tallies the number of voters each of the polling places to be closed actually served voters previously. I saw plenty of numbers but did I miss that statistic? Seems to me if you are assessing something as important as possible voter suppression, you attempt to measure actual vs possible effect.

I did see that in Texas, voters who had used now closed polling places were allowed to use any other polling place. If designed to inhibit voting by any group, that seems poorly designed.

And back to my troll hole

For reference, the above message is a reply to a message where:
The reduction / relocation of polling places have been going on for years. from

Click Here

Georgia

Georgia, a state where 31 percent of the population is African American and 9 percent is Latino, has 214 fewer polling places. Georgia stands out because its counties have closed higher percentages of voting locations than any other state in our study. The top five closers of polling places by percentage were Georgia counties: The top three counties in the state were Lumpkin (89 percent closed); Stephens (88 percent closed); and Warren, which is 61 percent African American (83 percent closed). Bacon County, which is 15 percent African American, and Butts County, which is 28 percent African American, tied with 80 percent closed. Seven counties with major polling place reductions now have only one polling site to serve hundreds of square miles. In a February 2015 memo, the office of Brian Kemp, who was then serving as Georgia’s secretary of state, encouraged counties to consolidate voting locations. He specifically spelled out twice — in bold font — that “as a result of the Shelby vs. Holder [sic] Supreme Court decision, [counties are] no longer required to submit polling place changes to the Department of Justice for preclearance.

Polling place closures:

Click Here

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