On February 18, 2014—more than two years after LDF filed its complaint in Georgia State Conference of the NAACP, et al. v. Fayette County Board of Commissioners, et al.—a federal district court ordered the immediate implementation of a district-based remedial plan to cure the violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act that it found on May 21, 2013.
The Court’s order, requiring the implementation of district voting for Fayette County elections in 2014 for Board of Commissioners and Board of Education, can be read here.
Relying on the protections provided by Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act—a powerful tool that protects voters of color from voting methods, such as at-large voting, that weaken their collective voting strength—LDF filed suit on behalf of the Georgia State Conference NAACP, Fayette County Branch NAACP, and Black voters of Fayette County. In its challenge, Plaintiffs contended that although Black residents comprise twenty percent of Fayette County, are geographically concentrated in the northeastern part of the County, and consistently vote together for Board of Commissioners and Board of Education candidates, at-large voting prevented Black voters from ever electing their preferred candidates of choice to those boards.
Plaintiffs sought—and won—the creation of five equally-populated election districts in Fayette County, each of which will elect one candidate to each board beginning with elections in 2014. By replacing at-large voting with district voting, Black residents of Fayette County now will constitute the majority of the voting-age population in one district, and will finally have the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice to both the Board of Commissioners and Board of Education for the first time in history.
Learn how you can prepare to vote in Fayette County for the upcoming, historic May 20 primary and November 4 general elections under district voting.