March 10, 2025
Virginia’s Appomattox County Board of Elections has made a request to close voting locations in two precincts that primarily serve Black voters.
Virginia’s Appomattox County Board of Elections has made a request to close voting locations in two precincts, Precinct 201 and Precinct 502, both locations that primarily serve Black voters, which spurred protests from the NAACP State Conference of Virginia of potential voter suppression regarding the move.
According to Virginia Mercury, 36.7% of Precinct 201’s voters are Black and 24.4% of Precinct 502’s voters are Black, and if the petition, made in January, for the proposed closures are successful, it could create an undue burden on those voters, making them travel up to 30 minutes by car to the next closest polling location.
The Virginia NAACP, including its president Rev. Cozy Bailey, condemned the closures as a threat to the voting rights of Black citizens who live in those precincts.
“Voting is a fundamental right and the foundation of our democracy. All citizens of Appomattox County are entitled to have an equal opportunity to participate in the electoral process regardless of their race or ethnicity. Throughout our history, various tactics have been employed to limit access to the ballot, including precinct closures, voter ID laws, and other measures that disproportionately affect marginalized communities…We should work to make voting easier and more accessible, not create new obstacles to the ballot box,” Bailey told the outlet.
Bailey also added that if the proposal was successful, it would “perpetuate these historical patterns and result in barriers to participation for Black voters in Appomattox County.”
According to David Richards, a political science professor at the University of Lynchburg, the stated need from Appomattox County officials to repair the building housing the polling location is not an excuse to make it harder for people to vote.
“Anytime barriers are introduced to voting, the number of participants decreases. I will not assume motive, but we should look at the facts as they are,” those facts, he told the Virginia Mercury, include the demographic data of people who would be affected by the closure of the polling location in their communities.
As Bailey told WSET, despite a defense of the proposal at a public meeting concerning the Appomattox County Board of Elections’ request, it remains a naked attempt at suppressing the votes of the minority communities in those two precincts.
“The idea is to close, consolidate, move, what have you, voting precincts that are in fact in predominately African American areas and close those and move them and the result of it is it makes it more inconvenient to vote. It’s an attack on the voting capabilities and availabilities for Black and Brown communities both,” Bailey told the outlet.
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