Voting rights decision made by county in 2007 draws criticism
by Larry S. Chowning
The Middlesex County Board of Supervisors decision in 2007 to “bail out” of Section 5 of the U.S. Voting Rights Act of 1965 was criticized at a board meeting on Tuesday, January 17.
The National Voting Rights Act was signed on August 5, 1965 to make it illegal to have discriminatory voting practices in all states. The act also gave the U.S. Justice Department oversight over state and local voting procedures to ensure fairness to all.
The act eliminated “Jim Crow” laws which, among other things, had discriminated by imposing a poll tax and literacy test for voters.
Thirty-five states had Jim Crow laws before the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965.
Jim Crow laws disenfranchised thousands of African-Americans and others who could not pass the test or pay the poll tax.
Middlesex County had a poll tax and required a literacy test be passed in order to vote until passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
“It’s our history,” said Purnell Wood of Urbanna at the January 17 board meeting. “I can remember my mother telling me we had to pay a poll tax to vote.”
Wood contended that in 2007 the Middlesex County Board of Supervisors did not follow proper procedures when it voted to “bail out” of Section 5 Voting Rights Act regulations.
In 1982, the U.S. Justice Department decided to allow cities and counties that were covered by Section 5 of the voting act to “bail out” of some of the act’s regulations, provided there had been no evidence of discrimination.
Virginia, along with Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina were the initial Section 5 “covered jurisdictions” because of their history of discriminating against minority voters.
Counties such as Middlesex that were approved for the “bail out” no longer had to submit some time-consuming voting-related changes, such as changing poll sites, to the Justice Department for approval.
County registrar Eileen Howard said this week she suggested the bail out because “every time we made the slightest change we had to send it to the Department of Justice [for approval]. When we had a voter registration drive, or extended office hours, or moved a polling place, they (Justice Department) had to know and it took 60 days to get a decision. We had to get approval on everything and it just slowed things down. We had to wait 60 days and we couldn’t do any changes 60 days before an election.”
Rev. Chauncey Mann, who was the secretary of the Middlesex Electoral Board in 2007, said this week, “At the time, I felt it (bail out) was a good thing considering the county’s good track record for electing minorities and the way we have handled elections.
“An attorney also looked into our past record and found nothing wrong with the way Middlesex County has handled elections in recent years,” Mann said.
Proper notification?
Wood stated that during the bail out application process in 2007, county officials and the federal government did not properly notify minorities of the county’s desire to make the change.
“It clearly states that minorities should be made fully aware of the matter before a decision is made,” Wood said. “They never notified the local NAACP or any minorities other than [supervisor] Wayne Jessie that I know of.”
Also, the Justice Department’s stipulation of facts states that “the United States’ consent in this action is based upon its own factual investigation and consideration of all of the circumstances in this case, including the view of minority citizens in the county.”
Wood said, “I’d like to know what citizens they talked to.”
Wood also said the county’s stipulation of facts stated that Jamaica District was a minority-populated district. “When does 32% of the district being black denote a minority district?” he asked. “It’s supposed to be 51% before it can be labeled a minority-majority district.”
Wood noted that Lancaster and Essex counties both have minority districts.
Wood said there are three types of minority districts and the county is supposed to have had at least one to meet the Voting Rights Act requirements.
A district can be a “majority district” with a minority population of over 51%; or a “super minority district” with a minority population of 65% or more; or an “opportunity minority district” where minorities had shown a great deal of involvement in that district.
Wood said a portion of the old Saluda District, now in the Harmony Village District in Locust Hill, had enough minority participation for it to be an “opportunity district.” In that area of the county black residents worked to get supervisors and the Virginia Department of Transportation to improve Healy’s Road; encouraged speed limit and school bus stop signs; and fought to stop supervisors from approving low-income housing on the road.
Wood also said the county stated in the stipulation of facts to the Justice Department that Middlesex enforced the one man-one vote law, yet when the county made the request to “bail out,” it had three districts, with two supervisors each in the Saluda and Pinetop districts and one in Jamaica District. “That is not one man-one vote to me,” said Wood.
Wood noted Middlesex County now has five districts with each district having one supervisor and is now abiding by the one man-one vote rule.
The stipulation of fact in 2007 states, “The Middlesex County Board of Supervisors is the governing body that formulates policies for the administration of government in Middlesex County. It is comprised of five members elected from single-member districts to serve 4-year staggered terms.”
“Yet, there were actually only three districts at the time,” said Wood. “It’s a false statement.”
During redistricting in 2010, supervisors agreed to have five voting districts by forming the new Hartfield and Harmony Village districts, with all five districts each having one representative.
County administrator Charles Culley said this week that in 2007, Rev. Mann and other members of the electoral board suggested the county bail out of the Voting Rights Act.
“The reason to do that was because every time we wanted to move a polling place we had to provide enough time before the election to contact the Department of Justice and wait 60 days for its decision,” said Culley.
“They (Department of Justice) had never before turned down anything we had sent, so the county was a strong candidate for the bail-out program,” said Culley.
“We cannot create a majority black district [in Middlesex] because we only have a 22 percent black population, and they don’t live close enough together.” said Culley. “We have pockets of black residents all through the county. Even by gerrymandering we cannot connect all those people together to create one district.
“Over the past 30 years there have been no issues concerning Middlesex and voting discrimination,” Culley said. “We have had black representation on the board of supervisors since 1980. We’ve had blacks on the school board and two black sheriffs elected in a county that has a large majority white population.”
Culley added that the reason the Department of Justice went along with the bail out was because Middlesex County did not have civil right issues when it came to voting.
Howard added, “The electoral board approved it (bail out) and Rev. Mann agreed with it. We had to prove we had no issues of discrimination 10 years back. I had to show how many minorities we had serving on the electoral board and in elected offices. We had a good record.”
Wayne Jessie, a black supervisor from Jamaica District, said this week officials of the Justice Department contacted him about the bail out issue in 2007. Jessie said he told the department that Middlesex County had a good history of electing African-Americans.
Jessie added that a minority district would be difficult to create in Middlesex because there are 2,000 blacks in a county of 10,000 people, and they do not all live in the same area.
“If there are problems with discrimination [in the future] we can change it back to the way it was,” said Jessie.
