ADVISORY: Civil Rights Experts Ring Alarm on Poll Closure Epidemic, Urge Passage of Voting Rights Advancement Act
WASHINGTON – The Leadership Conference Education Fund will hold a national press call on Tuesday, September 10, at 3 p.m. ET to discuss its newly released report, “Democracy Diverted: Polling Place Closures and the Right to Vote.” A second iteration of original research first released in 2016, the report analyzes 757 of 861 counties and county-level equivalents previously covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which the U.S. Supreme Court gutted in its Shelby County v. Holder decision. The report explains how and why polling place closures are having an increasingly detrimental impact on communities in states with histories of voter discrimination.