Macon-Bibb elections board to vote on precinct change next month

Although the Macon-Bibb County Board of Elections was set to vote Thursday on temporarily moving a polling place to a sheriff’s precinct, officials learned they will have to wait until May to take action.

Earlier this year, the board decided to move the Memorial Gym polling place to a sheriff’s building near Second Street and Houston Avenue because of ongoing construction at the gym. That plan drew fire from various civil rights groups, including the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP, which alleged that the proposed location could alienate some minorities.

The scheduled vote on the move couldn’t happen Thursday, because the board did not properly provide legal notice in The Telegraph, the county’s official legal organ. That was one of the arguments made by the groups protesting the move, which included the Georgia Coalition for the Peoples’ Agenda and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Macon-Bibb County Attorney Judd Drake agreed that proper notice had not been given.

“They were correct,” Drake told the elections board. “At this point, I think we need to do that.”

The board pushed the vote on the matter to May 3, after public notice is given.

Elections board member Ronnie Miley said he’s satisfied with moving the polling place to the sheriff’s office and plans to support it.

“I think what we’re doing as a board, and ...what we need to do as a community, is to encourage people to exercise their rights to vote and not to make any excuses about voting,” Miley said. “There was, of course, no malice on our part for the location. We had to make a choice, and we wanted to keep it within the boundaries. ... There’s maybe a few things that we did not consider, but I think we considered the opportunity for voters to vote.”

Gerald Harvey, a former Macon city councilman and candidate for the Georgia House of Representatives District 142 seat, urged the board to reconsider placing the precinct at the sheriff’s building.

“There are a lot of other suitable locations right around there,” Harvey said. “I know there was no malice on your part ... but as much as these concerns have come up, I would ask that you reconsider.”

Gwen Westbrook, of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, also urged the board to reconsider moving the polling place to the sheriff’s building.

“People will be disenfranchised,” Westbrook said. “That community has had a lot of issues with the police. ... People from the ages of 18 to 40, when I said ‘police precinct,’ they just said they’re not going to go up there. It’s not because they have a warrant or anything. It’s just because of the encounter that they had.”

A couple of election board members said those issues could be overcome by simply voting early at the Board of Elections office.

Carol Spain, who has lived in the voting precinct for 58 years, said she prefers the sheriff’s building to Memorial Gym, a place where she said her grandson was shot.

“I personally don’t go to Memorial Gym, even before he got shot, because of the safety issue up there,” Spain said. “Y’all need to get off this. I think there’s a few minute people who have a problem who don’t even live in south Macon.”

Henry Ficklin, a former Macon councilman, said he disagreed with his friends, Westbrook and Harvey.

“It has continued to be plagued with concerns of safety at that gym,” Ficklin said. “I think that this energy should be put into going to get more people in that district to show up and vote. That’s what we need to do.”

This story was originally published April 21, 2016 at 6:59 PM with the headline "Macon-Bibb elections board to vote on precinct change next month."