National and local voting rights activists, worried about threats to casting ballots, are setting up command centers, staffing hotlines and deploying thousands of monitors to polling sites, including some in Louisiana, USA Today reports.
“There is no election like this in modern history, and we are taking every precaution that we can, within our means, to prevent intimidation and to make sure that folks know that they will be able to cast their ballots free from intimidation,” says Scott Simpson, director of media and campaigns for the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of 200 groups.
With talk of so-called rigged elections and the Supreme Court’s rejection of a key section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, civil and voting rights activists say they’re concerned about possible roadblocks at the polls, particularly in the South.
Southern states—including Louisiana—were required to get approval from the U.S. Justice Department before making any changes in election procedures because they had a history of discrimination at the polls.
A 2013 Supreme Court decision—Shelby County v. Holder—threw out that provision. This will be the first presidential election since pre-clearance was eliminated.
Election Protection, a coalition of more than 100 civil rights and voting rights groups, has set up a national hotline where 4,500 legal volunteers will field calls. It is also plans to send monitors to 29 states, including Louisiana, and set up a national command center in Washington, D.C.
In Louisiana, Election Protection has partnered with the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Southern University Law Center, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and others. Command centers, which will be staffed with legal volunteers to respond to voter questions and concerns, will be set up in Baton Rouge, Lake Charles and New Orleans.
So far there have been few reports of major problems in Louisiana during early voting, says Trupania Bonner, a voting rights activist from Slidell and director of Crescent City Media Group. There have been, however, some complaints about precincts moved at the last minute in Baton Rouge due to the August flood.
