Though we’re surrounded by stories of the Republican Party’s systemic voter suppression efforts, most of us are (to some degree) removed from the physical effects of those laws. This year more than ever I’ve recognized my extreme privilege of being able to walk into my early polling place and walk out the door having cast my ballot with no issues. I live in the Great State of North Carolina, a true microcosm of this country and a state where the Republican Party has gone to extreme lengths to suppress the vote in an attempt to swing elections in their favor. I’ve seen first-hand the wild success of one of their efforts to commit voter suppression and it’s got me seething with anger.
A few months after taking office in 2013, Republican Governor Pat McCrory signed into law a sweeping bill taking advantage of the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in order to place extensive restrictions on the voting rights of our state’s residents. The law most infamously required the use of voter ID—a bogeyman issue that was en vogue with Republicans nationwide at the time—but it didn’t stop there. The law also cut the number of days devoted to early voting by a full week, eliminated same-day registration of new voters, and it prohibited the pre-registration of teenagers who would turn 18 in time for the next general election.
The law was in place long enough to survive through the 2016 presidential primaries, but it didn’t survive the scathing scrutiny of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. The court ruled this summer that the specifics of the law targeted Black voters with “almost surgical precision,” each provision designed specifically to disenfranchise Black voters so that Republicans would have an easier time winning subsequent elections.
The North Carolina Republican Party didn’t take too kindly to that legal setback. The party quickly instructed Republican-controlled county boards of elections to “follow the party line” on voting rights—in other words, suppress the vote—in order to subvert the power of the legal ruling. 23 counties obeyed the NCGOP’s marching orders to restrict early voting, including mine.
I live in Rockingham County, a blocky entity of about 93,000 people (59,731 of whom are registered to vote) that borders Guilford County (home to Greensboro) to the north. Our largest towns are Eden (15.5k) in the north, Reidsville (14.5k) to the east, Wentworth (2.8k) in the middle of the county, and Mayodan (2.4k), Madison (2.2k), and Stoneville (1.0k) out on the western half of the county. The remaining population lives in the rural areas that surround these six communities.
Rockingham County is a fairly conservative place; even though we have about 3,000 more registered Democrats than registered Republicans, a solid number of them are the older Democrats who haven’t updated their registration or voted Democratic since disco was hot.
As a result, Republicans do extremely well here up and down the ballot. President Obama got 38.9% of the vote here in 2012 and received 42.4% of the vote in 2008. The County Board of Commissioners is 100% Republican. A decent chunk of Rockingham County’s Democratic support comes from Black voters. The three precincts that cover the City of Reidsville—Moss Street, McCoy, and Southeast—are home to nearly half of the 12,000 Black voters who were registered here at the beginning of October. The remaining 53% of Black voters are distributed pretty evenly among the county’s other 12 precincts. Given that the county is controlled by Republicans, we’re subject to whatever laws and regulations they wish to pass and there’s virtually no pushback unless it comes from Republicans themselves.
Rockingham County opened early voting on October 20 with four locations around the county. The four locations were:
- The Salvation Army Community Center in Reidsville
- The Eden Mall
- The Madison-Mayodan Public Library
- The County Board of Elections Office in Wentworth
The first three locations were considered “satellite” polling places, all easily accessible to the vast majority of the county’s residents compared to the Elections Office, which is located about three miles past the middle of nowhere no matter where in the county you live.
In compliance with the Circuit Court ruling, Rockingham County offered 15 days of early voting, but in keeping with the Republican Party’s desire to see as few people vote as possible, they only offered the satellite locations for the first five days of voting. The remaining 10 days require residents to travel to the dead middle of the county in order to cast their ballots before election day.
All three satellite locations were served by the county’s (admittedly and surprisingly excellent) bus system, making it feasible for a solid number of low-income or disadvantaged voters to cast their ballot before the crush of Election Day. Meanwhile, the Elections Office in Wentworth is only accessible by people who either A) drive, or B) have several hours to kill in order to take the bus system’s cross-county connectors, and can also walk more than three-quarters of a mile up/downhill from the nearest connector stop to the Elections Office.
Offering the accessible satellite locations up front—and then taking them away mid-vote—seems to have worked according to plan. Word of the satellite locations got out just slow enough that people are still regularly showing up to the now-ceased polling places and having to go back home without casting a ballot.
The numbers bear out the success of their intentions. The first five days of early voting saw the following turnout:
- October 20: 3,488 votes (76.3% cast at the satellite locations)
- October 21: 2,797 votes (78.1% cast at the satellite locations)
- October 22: 1,804 votes (82.2% cast at the satellite locations)
- October 23: No Sunday voting! This was done to stop Souls to the Polls.
- October 24: 2,818 votes (79.1% cast at the satellite locations)
- October 25: 2,830 votes (84.2% cast at the satellite locations)
After the 25th, all of the satellite locations were shut down and the remainder of early voting was moved to the boondocks. Once that happened, turnout dropped like a rock:
- October 26: 752 votes
- October 27: 865 votes
- October 28: 1,028 votes
- October 29: 699 votes
- October 31: 955 votes (data for Oct. 31 from Carolina Transparency)
Each day of single-site voting fell far short of even half the daily average seen during the first five days of early voting. This is not a fluke, nor is it the likely result of early voting tapering off as more people cast their ballots.
I regularly make the cross-county hike out to the Madison-Mayodan Library to enjoy a quiet day of writing and reading in their new facilities. Each day I’ve gone up there since the satellite voting period ended on October 25 I’ve seen a steady stream of people walk up to the front entrance, stop dead in their tracks, and angrily return to their car to leave. They’re leaving because they saw the signs that say that early voting has ended there and that they have to go to the Elections Office in order to cast their ballots.
Each time I’ve made it a point to watch the entrance of the former satellite voting location, I’ve seen 5 to 10 people walk up to the entrance and leave in the span of just a couple of minutes because there’s no longer any voting here. I stood outside yesterday and watched 7 people get turned away in just 10 minutes. I did the same today and watched 6 people walk up, read the sign, and leave in the span of 15 minutes. I spoke with one of the librarians here who told me that they receive about 35-40 calls and visitors per day asking about early voting.
If that’s a trend at this location and the other two satellite locations, our county has potentially turned away hundreds (if not thousands) of potential early voters in their zealous efforts to suppress the vote. I’m not sure how many of these folks actually made that hike to the middle of nowhere to vote, but judging by the ~70% drop-off in ballots between the first five days and the most recent five, the answer is not many.
Every vote matters, and every vote matters even more in a state where each race—from the White House to the Attorney General’s office—has the potential to be a razor-thin ordeal. The Republicans who control this state know that every vote matters, and that’s why it’s so maddening that they’ve decided to try to suppress the vote rather than fighting based on the merits of their ideas. Let’s just hope their sit-out-the-vote efforts don’t swing the outcome the way they want.