Voter intimidation in the South

Memphis, Tenn.--On Election Day I volunteered at the Memphis command center of Election Protection, a national, non-partisan organization that monitors polling sites. We were responsible for dispatching trained volunteer teams to polling sites in north and south Memphis, regions with high concentrations of low-income and Black voters.

Voter intimidation was a widespread problem throughout the areas we targeted. We heard reports of GOP "poll watchers" standing behind the voter registration desk and capturing people's personal information as they signed the register to vote. Voters were visibly intimidated by this, but on-site election officials refused to order the GOP poll watchers to stop.

Every precinct has brand-new Diebold machines. We heard many reports of machines malfunctioning. At one polling site, the Diebold machines rejected the electronic voter cards, so a GOP poll watcher was swiping the cards for every voter at the machine! No partisan "watcher" should be allowed to touch the machine when people are voting! In a south Memphis precinct, four of the seven voting machines began smoking at 8:30 a.m. Over 100 voters were turned away without being offered provisional (paper) ballots! When I left the command center at 12:30 p.m., the four machines had not been replaced, and the line to use the three remaining was long.

The most egregious voter intimidation was committed by the Memphis Police Department. Cop cars sat in parking lots of precincts throughout north and south Memphis and pulled people over for traffic violations as they were turning into the lot to vote! We fear that many voters were discouraged from voting because they saw police lights in the parking lot.

It is obvious that true human freedom will take a revolution, not an election, but until that moment, it is important that all people can participate in elections and that no voter is intimidated. The South has a long history of disenfranchising Black voters, yet I did not see any media coverage of the violations in Memphis. It makes me wonder if Black voter disenfranchisement is such a part of politics in the South that the mainstream media does not find it newsworthy.

--Amy Garrison