JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Multiple groups in Jacksonville want more early voting and election day polling locations added to District 10, a predominantly Black district.
The area lost some of its polling sites because of a lawsuit settlement last year.
Recommended Videos
MORE: Jacksonville City Council approves $100,000 settlement in redistricting lawsuit
Jerry Holland, Duval County Supervisor of Elections, said the lawsuit dealt with some groups arguing about equal access to voting. The argument was some districts had too many voting sites while others didn’t have enough.
“That was a whammy,” Janine Williams, a member of Harriet Tubman Freedom Fighters and resident of District 10, said.
She along with other groups are fighting for the district.
Some of those other groups include: All Voting is Local, Beaches Activist Movement, Campus Vote Project, Fair Elections Center, Jacksonville Branch of the NAACP, League of Women Voters of Jacksonville, Northside Coalition of Jacksonville and State Voices Florida.
“So basically District 10 already lost seven polling sites, election day sites,” Williams said. “District 10 is predominately Black.”
The district used to have 19 general election day polling sites but now has 12.
Williams also noted the district no longer had the Gateway Town Center area as an option for an early voting site.
“Members in that area, in the Gateway area would have to go out of their own community to vote early,” Williams said. “So I believe that has disenfranchised Black voters.”
Williams, Sam Coodley, a campaign manager with All Voting is Local and Elgin Foreman, a volunteer with Northside Coalition of Jacksonville, said some people in the Gateway area don’t have cars, so they would walk to that plaza to vote early.
Now, if those people had to walk to the early voting locations in District 10 it would be a 49-minute walk to the site on Edgewood Ave or a two-hour walk to the one on Soutel Drive, according to GPS.
MORE: Here is a list of early voting locations.
The three think this could prevent people from wanting to vote early. And especially voting in the general election with the loss of the seven election day sites.
To add a quick fix to what they’re calling a problem, the group wants to add another early voting location to the area now, and in the future.
As well as add more general election day sites down the line.
“There should be some way to activate a supplemental location,” Foreman said.
News4JAX took that want of adding an early voting site for the upcoming election to Holland.
“For this year not possible, one because it’s not just a staffing, it’s also having the equipment,” Holland said. “And we would have to order and purchase, go out to bid all those situations so it’s not enough time to get the funding and then get the equipment in for the 2024 election.”
Holland added early voting sites must be located in a government building, and there’s not the ability to have gateway as an early voting site currently, with the sites that are being used.
He also said to get more early voting sites and just regular polling locations added to District 10 for the following election, people in his office would have to check out different sites.
But they’d also have to look at adding more sites in other areas to make it fair.
Williams, Coodley and Foreman said this is not something they were aware of and agree with.
That’s because they said when speaking with Holland a few months ago, they were under the assumption it would not be that big of a task to add an early voting election site.
“As a member of District 10, I’m going to continue to speak and make my request known for District 10,” Williams said.
Williams and members of the other groups do have a petition online for people to sign, information about that petition can be found here.