Jacksonville, Florida – Several Jacksonville groups want more early and Election Day voting locations added to the majority-Black 10th District.
The area lost several polling places in a lawsuit settlement last year.
more: Jacksonville City Council approves $100,000 settlement in reorganization lawsuit
Duval County Elections Supervisor Jerry Holland said the lawsuit was about groups fighting over equal access to the ballot, arguing that some precincts have too many polling places and not enough in others.
“It was a shock,” said Janine Williams, a 10th Ward resident and member of the Harriet Tubman Freedom Fighters.
She is fighting for the district along with other groups.
Other groups include All Voting is Local, Beaches Activist Movement, Campus Vote Project, Fair Elections Center, Jacksonville Branch of the NAACP, League of Women Voters of Jacksonville, Northside Coalition of Jacksonville and State Voices Florida.
“So the 10th District has already lost seven polling places, election day polling places,” Williams said. “The 10th District is a predominantly black district.”
The district once had 19 polling places on general election day but now has 12.
Williams also noted that the district no longer has the Gateway Town Center neighborhood as an option for an early voting location.
“Gateway residents have to travel outside their community to vote early,” Williams said, “so I think it disenfranchises Black voters.”
Williams, All Voting is Local campaign manager Sam Coudry and Elgin Foreman, a volunteer with Jacksonville’s Northside Coalition, said some people in the Gateway District don’t have cars and will walk to the plaza to vote early.
Now, if these people had to walk to their early voting location in District 10, their GPS would show a 49-minute walk to the Edgewood Road polling station and a two-hour walk to the Sawtelle Road polling station.
More details: Here’s a list of early voting locations.
The three believe this could discourage people from voting early, and could lead to less voter turnout in the general election, especially with seven polling places eliminated on Election Day.
To quickly solve what they call the problem, the group hopes to add another early voting location in the area now and in the future.
We also plan to add election day locations in the future.
“There has to be some way to enable secondary locations,” Foreman said.
News4JAX responded to a request for additional early voting locations in Holland for the upcoming election.
“It can’t be done this year, in part because we need not only personnel, but equipment,” Holland said. “With all the ordering and purchasing and bidding and everything going on, there just isn’t enough time to get the funds in place and get the equipment in time for the 2024 elections.”
He also said that in order to add more early and regular voting locations in the 10th District for the next election, office staff would have to look at different polling locations.
But to be fair, they’ll need to consider adding sites in other regions too.
Williams, Coudry and Foreman said this was not something they were aware of or agreed to.
That’s because when they spoke with Holland a few months ago, they didn’t think adding additional early voting locations would be that big a task.
“As the councilman for the 10th District, I will continue to speak out and make my requests known for the 10th District,” Williams said.
Williams and other members of the group have put a petition online for people to sign, and information about the petition can be found here.
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