For Immediate Release
Aug. 1, 2023
Black Southern Women’s Collaborative Warns of Growing Threat of Voter Purges
ATLANTA – The Black Southern Women’s Collaborative (BSWC) today warned about the growing threat of voter purges, which deny Black and brown citizens’ right to vote. The network of Black women organizers in the South is also highlighting the ways in which their group is pushing back. The BSWC includes Kendra Cotton, executive director of the New Georgia Project; Rev. Rhonda Thomas, executive director of Faith in Florida; Nsombi Lambright, executive director of One Voice; Ashley K. Shelton, president and founder of the Power Coalition for Equity & Justice; Tameka Greer, president of Memphis Artists for Change; and BSWC founder Phyllis Hill, national organizing director for Faith in Action. They released the following statement:
“Modern day voter suppression comes in many different forms – precinct and DMV closings, cuts to early voting, restricted absentee ballot processes, moving polling places, etc.,” Hill said. “But one of the most sinister forms of voter suppression is voter purges.”
In Mississippi, BSWC member One Voice submitted an Open Records Request seeking information on persons who have been purged. It also is urging voters to double check their registration status.
Voter purges have occurred across the South for decades, but the Supreme Court case in Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute fueled the practice. “Consequently, election officials are no longer accountable to the very voters they are removing from the rolls – Black and brown people,” Lambright said.
In Georgia, 191,000 people may be purged from the voting rolls. “We know that voter purges are not about list maintenance,” Cotton said. “They are a far-right strategy to win elections.”
The New Georgia Project is creating a list of persons who didn’t vote in the 2020 or 2022 elections and will encourage them to double check their election status.
Even as communities face voter purges, Black women – including the BSWC – are engaged in strategic and intentional organizing to defend the right to vote. “We are highlighting this and other heinous practices because we want our communities to maintain or regain their right to vote,” Thomas said.
The BSWC is calling, texting and sending postcards to those who have been purged to make them aware and encourage them to register to vote.
In Tennessee, 100,000 Shelby County residents have been purged without notification.
“Voter purges are an unethical use of power to remove citizens’ right to vote,” Greer said. “Not using your right to vote should not enable state officials to rescind the right to vote. It is your right, whether you use it or not. With 1 in 5 (20%) Black Tennesseans unable to vote, it is crucial that the Shelby County Board of Elections immediately stop all purges. The organization I lead, Memphis Artists for Change, launched a Swerve the Purge campaign to help protect the right to vote and to challenge purges.”
In Louisiana, the Power Coalition for Equity & Justice is encouraging voters to double check their registration status, while it is urging election officials to publicize in local newspapers the names of persons purged. They are also asking officials to inform the organization of the places they are targeting for voter purges.
“We plan to send postcards to voters encouraging them to double check their registration status and to register to vote if they’ve not already done so or if they’ve been removed from the rolls,” Shelton said.
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