The Trump administration is reportedly targeting minority voters using the Americans With Disabilities Act

The proposal to close seven of nine polling places in majority-black Randolph County, Georgia, has drawn national attention and legal challenges. Proponents of the plan, including a consultant recommended by Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp (R), say the seven polling places run afoul of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), although many are in public buildings like fire stations. (Kemp, who has a long history of purging voter rolls and targeting black voters, opposes the Randolph County plan; he is also the GOP nominee for governor, running against Democrat Stacey Abrams, who is black.)

But the Georgia officials aren't the only ones using the ADA, "intended to protect the nation's disabled communities, as a pretext to disenfranchise minority voters," says Kira Lerner at ThinkProgress. Under President Trump, the Justice Department's Disability Rights Section "has settled at least five enforcement actions in counties across the country where polling locations do not meet the stringent requirements of the ADA," and four of those five "have significant minority populations." In the 10 years before Trump took office, Lerner notes, "the Justice Department settled just nine ADA enforcement actions related to polling locations."

Jim Tucker, a former DOJ Voting Section lawyer who's part of the Native American Voting Rights Coalition, tells ThinkProgress the Justice Department is also targeting polling stations in at least three largely Native American counties using ADA violations. "It's a diabolical move: Citing one civil rights statute (the ADA) as the justification for violating another," the Voting Rights Act, he said. "They are deliberately targeting not just Native Americans areas and polling places on tribal land, but they're generally targeting polling places that are in predominantly minority communities, and that's extremely problematic." You can read more at ThinkProgress.

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