Arkansas Judge Mandates Early Voting in Majority Black City
Early voting will be held at Seventh Street Church of Christ in West Memphis, Arkansas after a judge granted part of a request from two voters. The voters in the majority-Black city initially requested at least two early voting locations.
This comes after the Board of Election Commissioners failed to unanimously approve an early voting site in West Memphis.
Amid three voting and election lawsuits filed this cycle in Arkansas, the state’s mandate for early voting at one of its polling locations has proven beneficial for voters.
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The judge said County Clerk Paula Brown, who designated the Seventh Street Church of Christ in West Memphis as a voting site after the board didn’t choose a location, had the authority to set an early voting location outside of a courthouse. The judge ordered the board and the county to administer early voting at that location for the 2024 election.
The judge stated that “the Arkansas Legislature intended to grant county clerks the power to conduct early voting outside the courthouse because some number of those courthouses around Arkansas, particularly Crittenden County, are not suitable for early voting-or are only marginally suitable when it does not rain.”
The voters asked the court to rule that this church and the First Baptist Church West Memphis, which was an early voting site for the 2022 election, should be voting locations.
The judge advised the plaintiffs to appeal the case to the Arkansas Supreme Court so that they could consider the issue of ordering the board to make the First Baptist Church a second voting location. This is because the law is unclear on the authority to establish or change early voting sites.
Learn more about the case here.
Original post, Sept. 30
Two Arkansas voters sued a county and its election board last week for refusing to hold early voting in the largest city of a majority-Black county for the 2024 election.
The three-member Crittenden County Board of Election Commissioners met at the end of August to discuss moving the early voting site for West Memphis, an Arkansas town of almost 24,000 people, to a local library from the First Baptist Church West Memphis, which was used during the 2022 election.
James Pulliaum, one of the commissioners, voted not to move early voting to the West Memphis Library during the Aug. 23 meeting.
The voters explained in their lawsuit that the library is “insufficient to accommodate electioneering by candidates” and there are “concerns regarding accessibility, traffic, and parking.” Also, they added that it wouldn’t be available every day of the early voting period.
At the Sept. 3 meeting, Chair Frank Barton asked Pulliaum if he wanted to change his vote, and he declined. Then, Pulliaum tried to discuss a different location — the Seventh Street Church of Christ — but no motions were made and no votes were held at that meeting, according to the lawsuit.
Later in the meeting, Barton said “there is no early voting place in West Memphis” for the 2024 election,” the plaintiffs said in their lawsuit.
The next day, the chair of the Crittenden County Democratic Party asked Barton to call an emergency meeting because Pulliaum requested to change his vote — deciding to support the library as an early voting location — but Barton did not call a meeting.
Later that week, Crittenden County Clerk Paula Brown sent a letter to the board, stating that she had designated the Seventh Street Church of Christ as an early voting site.
She explained in her statement that the county clerk has the legal authority to designate the early voting sites and that the commissioners can designate additional locations.
Then, this past Thursday, Shirley Brown and Lavonda Taylor filed a lawsuit against the county and the board, asking a county court to declare the First Baptist Church and the Seventh Street Church of Christ in West Memphis as early voting sites, as well as other locations.
Brown and Taylor asked the court to order the board “to perform its duties, prepare the election materials, seek poll workers, and perform all other administrative obligations necessary to conduct early voting” at these sites and mandate that the county must “direct its staff” to assist with this.
Also, in their lawsuit, the two voters asked the court to declare that the board’s “determination that no early voting will be held in West Memphis is unlawful.”
The court held a hearing in the case this week, and the judge said on Wednesday that he will issue a ruling in the case as quickly as possible, which could be as soon as this weekend.
West Memphis’ Black residents comprise over 60% of the city’s population, so if a court rules against the plaintiffs, numerous Black voters and others could face barriers to voting during this consequential election.