“The people got it done!”Īfter decades of diminishing the influence of Black voters by "packing" them into four districts, Jacksonville's new district map created a fifth district in which Black voters can elect preferred candidates. “Officials have to understand that we are taxpayers and that we deserve the same rights as everyone else,” McCoy said. McCoy was one of 10 plaintiffs in the suit brought by the SPLC, the ACLU of Florida and Harvard University’s Election Law Clinic on behalf of local civil rights groups and 10 individual plaintiffs. “ means that we now have rare, political power as the electors,” said Rosemary McCoy, co-founder of the Harriet Tubman Freedom Fighters, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to register returning citizens and new and young voters in communities of color. With generations of white political leaders assured of Black political impotence, their flagrant neglect of Black neighborhoods continued as standard operating procedure. The old map artificially “packed” Black voters into four districts to diminish their political influence on other districts and ensure white majorities on the governing bodies. Now Black voters will have the chance to determine the actions their government takes.” “Community members were complaining about a liquor store set to be located next to a school. “The court-ordered map, as part of the settlement, appears to have provided Black voters the opportunity to elect preferred candidates,” said Jack Genberg, senior staff attorney for voting rights at the SPLC. One week later, in the first elections since the City Council agreed to the settlement, Black residents exercised their newfound political power in this fast-growing city, the 11th largest in the U.S. The new map created a fifth district in which Black voters can elect preferred candidates. The judge repeatedly rejected the city’s defense of its proposed alternative map and ordered it to use a new, fairer district map, offered by the Southern Poverty Law Center. On May 9, the Jacksonville City Council agreed to settle a federal lawsuit charging that the city has long deployed an unconstitutional, racially gerrymandered voting district map that denied Black voters fair representation in city council and school board elections. Housing is decrepit.īut after a century and a half of neglect by white-dominated governments, hope is rising across this Atlantic Coast city. Roads and sidewalks – if they are even there – need repairs. include your Florida driver license, your Florida ID card number, or the last four digits of your social security number.Anyone looking for the perfect model of urban blight need only look at the Black neighborhoods of Jacksonville, Florida.Unless you are an absent uniformed service voter or an overseas voter seeking a vote-by-mail ballot, if you request that your ballot be mailed to an address other than your address on file in the Florida Voter Registration System, your request must be: state their relationship to you along with their name, address, and FL driver license number, FL state ID card number, or the last four digits of their social security number (if available).be an immediate family member or legal guardian AND.May be verified in the election supervisor’s records. You will also need to provide your Florida driver license number, your Florida ID card number, or the last four digits of your social security number – whichever You must provide your full name, home address, date of birth, and (again) signature if your request is in writing. by telephone to the Supervisor of Elections’ office.in person at the Supervisor of Elections’ office.by signed writing (e.g., mail, fax, or scanned attachment to an email) to the Supervisor of Elections.You or your Designee may request that a vote-by-mail ballot be mailed to your address that is on file in the Florida Voter Registration System.
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