![]() But to Coley-Pearson, helping people vote isn’t only about politics or even just about their rights as individuals. Raphael Warnock is attempting to hold on to his seat in a race that could tip the Senate back to Republican control. Brian Kemp faces another challenge from Democrat Stacey Abrams, and Sen. To appreciate the impact of voter suppression, consider that recent elections have been determined by a narrow sliver of the electorate:Ĭoley-Pearson recognizes the importance of this moment for Georgia, which is no stranger to close elections. But the court left other provisions in place, including ones that increase penalties for helping voters who don’t qualify and require people who assist voters to fill out more paperwork. Texas passed a law prohibiting voters’ assistants from answering questions or paraphrasing complicated language on the ballot a federal judge struck down several sections of the law in June. Florida expanded the radius around election locations in which volunteers are prohibited from asking people if they need help. Last year, Georgia passed a law limiting who can return or even touch a completed absentee ballot. While they do not all target voters who struggle to read, they make it especially challenging for voters with low literacy skills to get help casting ballots. Over the last two years, the myth of election fraud, supercharged by former President Donald Trump in the wake of his 2020 loss, has fueled a barrage of new restrictions. Time and again, federal courts have struck down such restrictions as illegal and unconstitutional. ![]() ![]() Some states have required voters who needed help to sign an affidavit explaining why they need assistance some have prevented voters who couldn’t read from bringing sample ballots to the polls and limited the number of voters that a volunteer could help read a ballot. education system and who conservatives feared would vote for liberal candidates. “It’s by design, I believe, because they want to maintain that power and that control.”Ĭonservative politicians have long used harsh tactics against voters who can’t read - poor, often Black and Latino Americans who have been failed by the U.S. “How the system is set up, it disenfranchises people,” said Coley-Pearson, who blames Southern political leaders for throwing up hurdles. ProPublica analyzed the voter turnout in 3,000 counties and found that those with lower estimated literacy rates, on average, had lower turnout. For all of the recent uproar over voting rights, little attention has been paid to one of the most sustained and brazen suppression campaigns in America: the effort to block help at the voting booth for people who struggle to read - a group that amounts to about 48 million Americans, or more than a fifth of the adult population. With the women aboard, Coley-Pearson started the car, anxiety brewing in her mind.Įven though federal law guaranteed the two women the right to have someone help them vote, Coley-Pearson knew too well that this right was under attack. Neither Fillmore nor her daughter can read beyond a first-grade level, but they rarely miss an election, believing their votes can influence everything from their electricity costs to the way police treat them.Ĭoley-Pearson urged Jones to track down a utility bill to prove her identity at the election office just as Fillmore returned from a 10-hour shift, exhausted. Fillmore, 54, works at the local poultry plant cutting chickens. Now 60, Coley-Pearson serves as a city commissioner in Douglas, the majority-Black county seat. “I can’t find my ID and Mama, she’s still at work,” Jones said.Ĭoley-Pearson has helped the family vote for years - she’s known them since she and Jones’ mother, Sabrina Fillmore, were young. She turned in to the Kinwood Estates mobile home park and stopped at the edge of a familiar dirt driveway just as Shondriana Jones, 30, bounded down the steps of a trailer. In the late afternoon, she slid behind the sparkly pink steering wheel of her SUV for her final push of the day, heading down a long stretch of road where buildings gave way to fields and thickets of pine. ![]() A third of her neighbors in Coffee County struggle to read at a basic level, and she wanted to make sure they had help navigating their ballots.
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