One Person, No Vote by Carol Anderson

Author:Carol Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

We saw numerous examples of voter problems that confronted African Americans and their opportunity to participate in the electoral process. Voters standing in long lines only to be told they’re on inactive lists and not being given the opportunity to vote on a regular ballot. Voters who, when they got there, were given false or incorrect information regarding the photo ID policies of Alabama. Voters who, unfortunately, in certain areas, stood in long lines because facilities lacked the proper or the right number of voter machines or check-in locations.120

Kristen Clarke, executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, in an interview on WHNT, explained that her organization had already “received about 300 calls from concerned voters before 4 P.M. A number of the calls were from voters—who had apparently not voted in a while—who been moved to ‘inactive status’ ” because of Secretary of State Merrill’s aggressive purge. Not only is federal law unequivocal that registered voters cannot be removed simply because they have not voted; Alabama law is equally clear. Clarke noted that “if the voter can prove their identification or their address, they should be allowed to vote without issue.” And not, as Simelton later observed, be “directed to use provisional ballots,” which, studies show, are frequently used in districts with sizable minority populations and, worse yet, more than 30 percent of votes from provisional ballots are not counted fully or rejected outright.121

Sherrilyn Ifill was also alerted to the problem of an “inactive list” that seemed designed to “discourage … voters from casting a ballot.” She remarked as well on a “shortage of ballots or wrong voting machines at certain African American precincts … Long lines in Selma and Mobile due to too-few voting machines or check-in tables.”122 Attorney and president and founder of the Transformative Justice Coalition Barbara Arnwine identified additional failings. Citizens “went into Montgomery to vote,” she said, “and found out that the disability ramps had been removed.”123 Given that 17.5 percent of adults in Montgomery County have disabilities, this was not inconsequential.124 Arnwine continued: “What we also saw was ex-felons who had had their rights restored attempting to vote and being denied that right because they would not accept their ‘mugshot pictures’ which had been agreed to be accepted as legitimate photo ID.”125

For many of these shenanigans and system failures, the organizations were ready. The Lawyers’ Committee and the National Bar Association, which is the African American analog to the American Bar Association, had their attorneys on the ground to assist with information about citizens’ voting rights. Given the tendency to understaff and underresource polling stations in minority neighborhoods, it was imperative that people knew that “if you’re in line at the time the polls close, stay in line because you have a right to vote.”126 Similarly, BlackPAC “mobilized a group of lawyers who bounced around precincts and local courts on election day.”127 Meanwhile, Pastor Glasgow explained election law to poll workers who tried to reject mugshots as an acceptable form

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