Last week, officials in heavily black Randolph County, Georgia, sparked a national outcry over their plan to close seven of the county’s nine polling places on the grounds that they don’t comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The move, however, turned out to be entirely pretextual: An attorney for Randolph County quickly admitted that there hadn’t been a single complaint about accessibility at polling places, meaning they were used without problems in this year’s primary just months ago.
Why did officials pursue this plan in the first place? Randolph County is just one of nearly a dozen counties in Georgia with large African-American populations where local governments have moved to close polling places at the behest of a consultant with close ties to Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp, whose Democratic opponent in this year’s gubernatorial race, Stacey Abrams, would be Georgia' first black governor if elected. Following the uproar, Randolph County fired the consultant, Mike Malone, and a Friday vote on his proposal now looks unlikely to pass.
Even if Randolph County doesn’t move forward, it’s nevertheless breathtakingly cynical for Republicans to use one landmark civil rights law as a pretext to undermine another. Ever since the Supreme Court gutted a key part of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 that had previously required several mostly Southern states with a history of racial discrimination to obtain Justice Department approval before changing their election procedures—including closing polling sites—these Republican-run states have led the way in shuttering hundreds of polling places in disproportionately minority areas, making it more burdensome for voters to cast their ballots.
But there's one key way that progressives can fight back: Elect more Democratic secretaries of state. These people who serve in these offices are typically the top election administrator in each state, and they often play a key role in whether states and cities can get away with voter suppression, or whether they instead have to ensure that voting is easy and accessible for every citizen.
Can you give $1 to help elect each of these Democratic candidates for secretary of state?
This story has been updated to remove references to a ThinkProgress piece that incorrectly reported a broader Republican effort to use the ADA to close polling places in minority areas. It has also been updated to reflect Mike Malone’s firing.