A coalition of voting rights groups has just told us that they’re being bombarded by a stream of complaints ranging from intimidation at polling stations to voting machines breaking down, polling stations opening late and mass confusion about where to turn up to cast the ballot.
The most ominous reports are coming in to the hotline from Florida, traditionally one of the most hotly contested swing states in the nation. In Jacksonville, an unauthorized person was reported to be inside a polling place and refusing to leave in a way that voters found menacing. The coalition declined to state the individual’s party affiliation.
There are also reports of intimidating behavior by a group of individuals behaving aggressively outside the polling place at the Hollywood branch library in Broward County. The group approached vehicles in a way that made some would-be voters turn round and drive away before they had a chance to vote.
The Advancement Project said that people have been spotted in Florida driving around in pickup trucks waving Confederate flags in a threatening posture.
By 9.30am, the hotline had received 5,500 calls from around the nation. Many were from North Carolina, another hotly fought state, where polling machines were malfunctioning across entire counties.
The election protection coalition has 4,500 legal volunteers at hand today to deal with the calls coming in to its 23 call centers around the country. It sees its role as helping to fill the hole left by the absence of federal observers in many regions for the first time in 50 years, following the US supreme court ruling of Shelby County in 2013 that tore the heart out of the Voting Rights Act.
Since the ruling, 868 polling places have been closed in largely Southern states according to the Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights, which helps to explain the long lines that are being endured by many voters today.
“We are seeing tremendous disruption at the polls,” said the Leadership Conference’s Wade Henderson. “This is maybe the most chaotic election faced by voters of color in the last 50 years – it’s a perfect storm for voter disenfranchisement.”
* You can contact the voter hotline on 866-OUR-VOTE
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