海角大神

Surrounded by a partial crew of her 18 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Nola Cunningham sits in the recliner at the hearth of her humble house on Yazoo Street. The presence of her family only heightens the dignity of the septuagenarian鈥檚 authority.

Ms. Cunningham reminisces about picking butter beans as a teenager, partly for money but also to get away 鈥渇rom really strict parents.鈥� Now this is her place, where country clutter mixes with memorabilia, a broken lawnmower, and a black-and-white portrait of a young Cunningham at graduation.

Seared into her memory are the 1960s protests she participated in as racial tensions flared and Georgia became the cradle of the civil rights movement. In the decades since then, she has held one thing as a constant reminder of her civic value and her sacrifice: her vote.

Last month, Cunningham鈥檚 hard-fought dignity was unexpectedly confronted when she and eight other African-American seniors 鈥� all potential voters 鈥� were ordered by county officials to get off a bus headed to the first day of early voting in Georgia, which stood on the precipice of electing its first black governor.

鈥淓verybody was just excited about riding that big black bus,鈥� she says.聽

One moment they were dancing in the parking lot to James Brown鈥檚 鈥淪ay It Loud - I鈥檓 Black And I鈥檓 Proud,鈥� 鈥渂ut then someone called the commissioner鈥� and the get-out-the-vote party was over. The ladies filed off the bus. 鈥淚t was a sense of disappointment,鈥� Cunningham says.

County officials said they believed it was a partisan event. But the group that hired the bus, Black Voters Matter, is registered with the state as a non-partisan organization. Few felt disenfranchised. Cunningham did eventually get to the polls to cast her vote, as did, she says, the other ladies on the bus. Yet, she can鈥檛 quite shake the memory of that joyous moment, a celebration of her and her companions鈥� rights and civic duty, getting cut short.

The incident made national news, adding a murky layer to an emerging portrait of Georgia 鈥� one voting rights experts say is not wholly inaccurate 鈥� as a state bent on disenfranchising voters of color. That image has taken on a sharper hue with reports of voters arriving at the polls to find that their names had been stricken from the rolls, shortages of provisional ballots, and charges of mismanagement of absentee ballots.

鈥淭he sorts of practices that we saw in Georgia conjure up the ghost of Jim Crow,鈥� says Daniel Tokaji, professor of law at The Ohio State University and author of 鈥淓lection Law in a Nutshell.鈥� 鈥淎nd I don鈥檛 mean just for political junkies, but for ordinary people. They look at what happened in Georgia this past election and it is alarmingly familiar.鈥�

A legacy unfolds

Voting rights have stood center stage this past election season, especially in the South, where advocates say some politicians have taken advantage of a loosening of legal restrictions meant to ensure equitable representation at the polls.

To be sure, the 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th Amendments are all in effect to protect every American鈥檚 right to vote.

But in 2013, in a case called Shelby County v. Holder, the US Supreme Court took a decisive new stance on voting rights, steering away from former Justice Thurgood Marshall鈥檚 idea of the court as an ensurer of racial equity under the law. The high court鈥檚 decision repealed a Voting Rights Act mandate that required jurisdictions where voter suppression has occurred in the past to pre-clear voting changes with the Department of Justice.

Within days, states, primarily led by Republicans, began passing new restrictions that would have previously fallen under Supreme Court oversight. In Georgia, Shelby appears to have prompted an escalation in the removal of voter registrations. According to the Brennan Center For Justice, between the 2012 and 2016 elections, double the number removed between 2008 and 2012. This past July, 聽were removed from Georgia鈥檚 rolls.聽In June, the .

Since 2012,聽, leaving one-third of counties in the state with fewer precincts than they had before the Shelby decision.聽The closures have been attributed to cost-saving consolidation and to a聽reduced need for polling stations on Election Day due to an increase in early voting. Many of those precincts were in minority-majority neighborhoods.聽

The issue came to a head when the architect of those changes, then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp, a 鈥淭rump conservative,鈥� took on former House minority leader聽Stacey Abrams, who painted herself as the champion of the 鈥渦nwanted voter,鈥� in a neck-and-neck race for governor.

Critics say thousands were disenfranchised 鈥� perhaps enough to have swayed an election where 20,000 votes spanned the difference between a done deal and a runoff. Some may have showed up to vote and found their names expunged, according to investigative journalist Greg Palast, who sifted through the purge lists in coordination with civil rights groups like the Southern 海角大神 Leadership Conference.

On Friday night, Ms. Abrams acknowledged that she didn鈥檛 have the votes. Her decision to not file a lawsuit suggested that her impression of unfairness, however, likely would not hold up in court.

The US is now at a moment of gauging and calibrating where to shift the responsibility for ensuring fair elections in the wake of Shelby, voting rights experts say.聽Judging by Cunningham, the right itself may be as strong as ever, if not by law, by the character of its participants.

鈥淭hey tell me to vote for the shoe, I鈥檓 going to vote for the boot,鈥� chuckles Cunningham. 鈥淣obody tells me what to do, or how to vote.鈥�

The onus shifts

Last Friday, in a brick edifice the size and shape of a municipal pump station, Susan Gray and聽Natasha Mack聽were wiping their collective brows.

Ms. Gray, an elections superintendent, and Ms. Mack, her righthand woman, saw more than a hundred voters per day during early voting. For a county so small, it was an avalanche. 鈥淚t was bigger than [Obama] in 2008 and [Trump] in 2016,鈥� exclaims Mack.

Gray is painfully aware that Republicans believe Democrats are ready and willing to commit large-scale voter fraud. She also knows that Democrats believe Republicans are engaging in wholesale voter suppression.

鈥淚t can be hard because people tend to view the election process through who they want to get elected that particular year,鈥� says Gray.

And she is aware that things have changed. She received two letters from then-Secretary Kemp notifying counties that the rules have changed under Shelby. But in the end, only a few votes were disputed, recounted, and added to the total, on Friday. In short, there was no evidence of disenfranchisement in Jefferson County. Quite the opposite, judging by the turnout.

But flanked by an old stand-up voting machine, Gray 鈥� who cuts the profile of a kindly but harried librarian 鈥� 聽stands at the intersection of two monumental shifts.

Recent Supreme Court decisions 鈥� and the increasingly conservative makeup of the court 鈥� have moved the US further away from Justice Marshall鈥檚 idea that 鈥渢he Negro鈥� deserved 鈥済reater protection ... to remedy the effects of past discrimination.鈥�

With that change, the responsibility for preserving the integrity of the electoral system has shifted from the courts to local governments, election officials like Gray, and voters themselves.

The decision to scrap the 1965 pre-clearance formula appears to have in some jurisdictions 鈥� Georgia and North Carolina particularly 鈥� unleashed impulses to game the vote through massive voter purges and other actions under the guise of protecting against voter fraud, says Gilda Daniels who served as deputy chief in the DOJ鈥檚 Civil Rights Division under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Before 2013, 鈥渁ll the decisions in regards to polling place closures, how to count absentee ballots, how to count provisional ballots, all of those would have had to be cleared by the Department of Justice, by the attorney general of the United States,鈥� says Professor Daniels, who now teaches law at The University of Baltimore.

鈥淣ow, secretaries of State offices like Brian Kemp鈥檚 can make those decisions without ever having to think twice about having to adversely impact a particular group of voters or not,鈥� she says. 鈥淭oday there is a different illness, but it has the same impact: disenfranchisement of people of color on a wide scale.鈥�

For Daniels 鈥� and many Georgia voters 鈥� Kemp鈥檚 decision to retain his position as secretary of State and chief election overseer while running for office was emblematic of how Shelby has emboldened some Southern politicians.

Kemp鈥檚 machinations, however, do suggest that courts still play a role in regulating partisan and racial impulses. US District Court judges have ruled against certain restrictions taken in the name of election security that would disproportionately affect voters of color.

Just days before the Nov. 6 election, US District Judge Eleanor Ross ruled against Georgia鈥檚 鈥渆xact match鈥� law, which flagged voter registrations where the spelling of residents鈥� names varied between official documents. Whatever the intent of the law, the effect was that people with Africanized names were more likely to be purged.

鈥淢aybe it is not driven by racial hatred 鈥� although we are seeing resurgence of old-fashioned racial hatred 鈥� but let鈥檚 not forget that vote suppression has always been about self-interest as much as about racial animus 鈥� the self-interest of those in power to make it more difficult for other people to vote,鈥� says Professor Tokaji, who has argued several key voting rights cases in the last 15 years.

An electorate electrified

On the other hand, Election 2018 has reminded many Georgians that voting will perhaps forever be a hard-fought right.

All those hours Georgia voters spent waiting in the rain and dealing with poorly prepared precincts amounted to the price of the franchise, voting rights experts suggest.

鈥淎t best they are trying to game the election system for their advantage; at worst, they are trying to prevent people from voting,鈥� says Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University, in Atlanta. Either way, 鈥渢hat鈥檚 wrong. That鈥檚 a problem. You can鈥檛 claim that race doesn鈥檛 have anything to do with this when party and race are so heavily correlated.鈥�

Indeed, Michael McDonald, a political scientist at the University of Florida, has found聽聽by some voters.聽

At the same time, the will of the people to ensure their voices can be heard has echoed throughout the country.

Voters in Michigan fired politicians from what had become a partisan redistricting process, putting a citizens鈥� council in place instead to draw fair and competitive districts.

Sixty-four percent of Floridians agreed to automatically reinstate the franchise to released felons. In a state that remains evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, that result means the issue crossed partisan lines.

And more locally, after an uproar, Randolph County, Ga., in August scrapped a consultant鈥檚 plan to close seven of the county鈥檚 nine precincts just ahead of an election already shadowed by suppression charges.

In that way, says Tokaji, the enduring lesson from Georgia 鈥渋s likely to be that vote suppression is a double-edged sword. It might help you win a particular election. But the backlash is likely to be much stronger than the number of voters that you鈥檙e likely to actually keep from voting in the first place.鈥�

In that way, the post-Shelby era may be defined by an electorate electrified.

鈥淵es, it is a fight to vote,鈥� says Daniels, the former voting rights deputy chief. 鈥淵ou have to continue to fight. And in some ways that is good. It demonstrates that participation goes beyond Election Day.鈥�