Today, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) wrote the Dorchester County, South Carolina Board of Elections urging it to restore the polling site at Sand Hill United Methodist Church as the Delemars polling location for the November 2020 general election.
The Delemars polling site location was moved from Sand Hill United Methodist Church to Sand Hill Elementary School, which is in another community 6.5 miles away. The Board of Elections offered a variety of reasons for the relocation but did not provide documentation to support those claims. Further, it did not raise its concerns either at its meetings or with the Clubhouse community before issuing a notice that it was moving the Delemars polling site. Members of the Clubhouse community have attempted to bring to the Board’s attention their concerns, so far unsuccessfully.
According to the letter, “For more than seven months, Clubhouse community members have attempted to bring to the Board’s attention their concerns regarding Executive Director Billman’s decision to move the Delemars polling location … Clubhouse community members, for example, attended the Board meeting on January 16, 2020 and have submitted petitions and requests for the Board’s consideration to restore Sand Hill UMC as the Delemars polling location, including a letter submitted on March 10, 2020 by certified mail. Although the Board initially responded to concerns about the polling place relocation through a letter dated February 21, 2020, it has since then neither meaningful engaged nor responded to the request submitted on March 10, 2020.”
Read the letter here.
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Founded in 1940, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is the nation’s first civil and human rights law organization. LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or LDF. Follow LDF on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
