MONITOR
Voter Intimidation Is a Real Threat to the 2020 Race
Cases of intimidation at the polls, which have spiked in recent years, don’t bode well for the upcoming election
Last October, on the first day of Georgia’s early voting for midterm elections, the nonpartisan organization Black Voters Matter chartered a bus in Louisville, a rural, majority Black town, to transport 40 African American senior citizens from a community center to the polls. Jefferson County officials blocked the bus because they claimed the “event” was “political.”
Nine days later in the rural, majority Black town of Cordele, Georgia, a state trooper ticketed County Commissioner Royce Reeves, Sr., for temporarily parking his limousine on the wrong side of the road. Reeves, who is African American, was picking up voters in a limousine to take them to the polls. When confronted, Reeves immediately agreed to remedy his minor traffic violation. Despite this, minutes later, he was surrounded by nine law enforcement vehicles.
It should come as no surprise that voter intimidation is most prevalent in communities of color and precincts with a large number of limited English proficiency…
