Majority-black Georgia county rejects plan to close 7 of its 9 polling places

The vote comes shortly after the county announced it had fired the elections consultant, Mike Malone, who conceived of the plan. Malone was initially hired to temporarily fill the role of an elections supervisor, but he undertook efforts to close all but two of the county’s polling precincts instead.

The racial implications of the plan generated immense backlash. The county is over 61 percent black, and one of the polling locations that would be shuttered serves a precinct where more than 95 percent of voters are African American. Before the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, the closures would most likely have been blocked by the Department of Justice.

Voting advocates, including representatives from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, attended Friday’s voting, vowing to file a lawsuit if the county approved the plan.

Darian Aaron@darianaaronwrbl

This is the scene outside the Randolph County Courthouse in Cuthbert as we await the doors to be opened for a critical vote on the possible closure of polling places. @wrblnews3

“This is a victory for African American voters across Georgia who are too often subject to a relentless campaign of voter suppression,” Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers’ Committee, said in a statement. “The defeat of this proposal also shows the power of resistance and the impact that we can have by leveraging our voices against injustice.”

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