In a city with a longstanding relationship with the U.S. Department of Justice, Augusta officials viewed the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act decision with some concern, but little surprise.
As recently as last year, Justice Department preclearance interrupted a state-mandated shift in local nonpartisan elections from November to July. Augusta commissioners and its mayor are nonpartisan posts.
A federal judge redrew Augusta commission and Richmond County school board lines last year after local and state politicians would not compromise on a district plan.
Twenty-five years ago, the Justice Department forced the rescheduling of a July 1988 referendum on city-county consolidation to the following November, then required the government to scrap the successful November consolidation referendum as an unfair effort to dilute black political power.
The city, meanwhile, has no pending preclearance notices before Justice and no elections planned this year outside local races in Hephzibah and Blythe, Richmond County Board of Elections Executive Director Lynn Bailey said.
“As things stood yesterday, any time we made any change – whether relocation of a polling place, combining two precincts together – up until yesterday we had to go to the Department of Justice and we had to ask for preclearance,” she said. “If we no longer have to file preclearance notices … it’s a tremendous change in the way we do business.”
Bailey said voters should expect no changes in their routine.
via Augusta officials concerned about ruling on Voting Rights Act | The Augusta Chronicle.
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