Protecting Your Vote: 1 in 5 Election Day polling places have closed over last decade

This communicative is portion of ABC News' monthlong bid "Protecting Your Vote," profiling group crossed nan state who are dedicated to ensuring nan integrity of nan voting process.

Jesse Lee Hanson accepts immoderate of nan reasons why getting to his polling spot connected Election Day is simply a challenge.

He lives successful a agrarian area of Georgia wherever homes are separated by acres of farmland, doesn't ain a car, and walks pinch a cane aft suffering 2 strokes and a bosom onslaught -- each of which person made getting astir difficult.

But Hanson says he struggles to understand why his location of Warren County, Georgia, decided to adjacent 5 of their six polling places, forcing him to recreation astir triple nan region to formed his ballot.

"They didn't springiness america a logic aliases anything," Hanson told ABC News' Steve Osunsami. "I did person a small religion successful politics, but I person nary religion successful authorities now."

Like Hanson, millions of Americans person knowledgeable changes successful nan measurement they vote, arsenic section predetermination officials successful some agrarian and municipality areas person closed thousands of Election Day voting sites.

More than 1 successful 5 polling places person closed complete nan past decade, according to an ABC News and ABC Owned Stations study of information from nan Election Administration and Voting Survey, nan Center for New Data and nan Center for Public Integrity. Between 2012 and 2022, nan United States mislaid 27,000 polling places, pinch nan number of Election Day polling sites falling from an estimated 116,000 successful 2012 to less than 89,000 successful 2022.

Jesse Lee Hanson relies connected his pastor to springiness him a thrust to Warren County’s azygous polling spot connected Election Day.

Tomas Navia/ABC

The study recovered that polling spot closures accelerated successful 2013 aft nan Supreme Court rolled backmost cardinal provisions of nan Voting Rights Act successful nan lawsuit Shelby County v. Holder, which made it easier for predetermination officials to alteration polling locations without nan oversight antecedently provided by nan national authorities successful immoderate states.

Activists and experts who said to ABC News said nan determination allowed section governments successful areas pinch a history of discriminatory voting practices to make changes that harmed Black and brownish voters.

"Jurisdictions fundamentally saw nan floodgates unfastened ... by passing caller laws and procedures, moreover hours aft that determination was issued, to alteration nan voting rules," said Kareem Crayton, a vice president astatine nan Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit deliberation tank. "When polling places diminution and erstwhile you person less entree points to formed a ballot, what it intends is that it's little apt that group successful an mean predetermination ... show up."

'A very large deal'

Election officials opportunity location are a assortment of reasons why they determine to adjacent polling places, including shifting elector preferences, budgetary changes, and accessibility concerns. Some states, mostly successful nan West, mislaid astir of their polling places arsenic they transitioned to vote-by-mail. Others closed polling places erstwhile they consolidated vicinity voting stations into much centralized countywide ballot centers.

However, nan ABC information study identified a twelve states that did not make awesome changes to their predetermination procedures, yet still reduced nan number of places to ballot successful personification connected Election Day. These see cardinal plaything states for illustration Wisconsin, Ohio and Georgia, which unsocial mislaid 400 Election Day polling places since 2010.

In Hanson's location of Warren County, Georgia, 5 retired of six polling places shuttered soon aft nan Supreme Court reduced national oversight of elections. The county, which is mostly Black and debased income, was near pinch a azygous voting location to screen astir 300 quadrate miles.

For Wanda Jenkins, a resident of Beall Springs, Georgia, nan alteration meant she had to recreation an further 7 miles by car compared to casting her ballot astatine her section occurrence station, wherever she served arsenic a canvass worker for complete a decade earlier that tract closed.

"It would've been amended served successful my organization if it had stayed here," said Jenkins, who reminisced astir welcoming hundreds of voters each Election Day. "It's a very large woody for regular voters."

When researchers examined nan effect of polling position location connected elector turnout, they recovered that erstwhile nan region to a voting spot increases by a 4th of a mile, up to 5% of voters extremity going to nan polls. Additional investigation has demonstrated that lacking entree to a individual conveyance is 1 of nan largest drivers of inequality successful elector participation.

Following nan closures successful Warren County, elector turnout fell from 40% successful nan 2010 midterm to 35% successful nan 2014 midterm. While turnout dropped crossed Georgia during that time, Warren County's falloff was larger than nan statewide drop.

"I deliberation it discouraged a batch of voters who whitethorn not ... person transportation," said Jenkins, who said she believed nan region closed nan polling spot to disadvantage Black voters.

Jesse Lee Hanson needs to recreation astir triple nan region to ballot aft Warren County closed each but 1 of its polling places.

Tomas Navia/ABC

Warren County officials told ABC News that nan closures were not targeted, and did not person an effect connected turnout -- while claiming that nan changes saved nan region astir $30,000 connected printing costs unsocial during awesome elections.

Other battleground states person seen a disparity successful nan closing of polling places. In Wisconsin, wherever astir 8 successful 10 residents are white, racially divers communities successful nan Milwaukee area and successful adjacent Kenosha and Racine person seen awesome declines successful nan number of polling places. In Ohio, nan counties pinch nan largest declines person been among nan poorest successful nan authorities -- some agrarian and urban.

In justifying reductions to nan number of polling sites, predetermination officials person pointed to reduced budgets, accessibility concerns, changing elector preferences, information issues and organization changes, among different reasons.

"Against nan history and nan weight of nan grounds that we person seen complete nan decades, unfortunately, jurisdictions usage polling spot closures to really restrict nan vote," said Leslie Proll, nan elder head of nan Voting Rights Program astatine nan Leadership Conference connected Civil and Human Rights.

While nan U.S. saw nan spread successful elector information betwixt whites and non-whites diminution successful nan decades pursuing nan 1965 transition of nan Voting Rights Act, nan spread widened for nan first clip successful nan decade pursuing nan Supreme Court's Shelby County determination successful 2013, according to a 2024 Brennan Center report.

'No request for those galore polling places'

In Lincoln County, Georgia, a conflict complete polling places has been brewing up of nan upcoming election. A agrarian area, nan region is bordered by a reservoir named aft erstwhile Sen. Strom Thurmond, nan astir salient force of nan Civil Rights Act.

After seeing counties for illustration Warren successfully trim their predetermination sites, Lincoln County's elections head Lilvender Bolton said she decided to consolidate nan county's 7 polling locations 2 years ago. Bolton, who is Black, unsuccessfully attempted to adjacent each but 1 polling spot successful 2022, and she ended up consolidating nan 7 polling places into 3 locations past year.

"I would person a unit sitting location each day, and 1 personification travel to vote," said Bolton, who explained nan voting sites needed to beryllium modernized. "It was conscionable nary request for those galore polling places."

Bolton said her mini elections agency is amended suited to negociate nan recently consolidated polling sites, which inhabit modern and accessible caller buildings, and that voters are still capable to easy formed a ballot crossed nan 260-square-mile county.

But erstwhile Lincoln County's scheme to consolidate polling places made nationalist news and prompted backlash from organization members, Bolton said she was shocked and personally wounded by nan consequence to what she says is simply a well-intentioned change.

"They were each conscionable really huffy because, 'Oh, you conscionable don't want Black group to vote," said Bolton, who received a petition signed by hundreds of organization members and was approached connected nan thoroughfare by critics.

"All these news agencies, they were calling me," Bolton said. "We would talk, they would inquire maine what's going on, and past earlier nan speech ended they would say, 'Do you mind maine asking you a question? And I was like, 'No.' And they said, 'Are you Black?' And erstwhile I told them that I was, they were surprised."

'Why disenfranchise anybody?'

Leading nan complaint against Lincoln County's polling spot consolidation is Rev. Denise Freeman, a organization activistic who is now moving arsenic a Democrat to service arsenic president of nan Board of Commissioners successful nan deep-red county.

After years of hard-won advancement stemming from nan civilian authorities movement, Freeman said nan determination to adjacent polling places was a measurement successful nan incorrect direction, making it harder to ballot for nan county's group of colour and mediocre residents.

Rev. Denise Freeman believes Lincoln County closed polling places to make it harder to vote.

Tomas Navia/ABC

The president of nan Lincoln County Commission denied that nan closures were targeted, and said nan caller polling sites were much accessible for voters.

"The point astir it is, why disenfranchise anybody? Why adjacent immoderate polls?" Freeman said. "If we should beryllium doing things right, we would beryllium making judge that each personification has a correct to vote."

While her guidance to nan consolidation past twelvemonth grounded to extremity nan scheme from taking effect, Freeman has vowed to reconstruct nan county's polling locations if she wins her predetermination successful little than 2 weeks.

"People don't understand nan hardship that they put bully group successful erstwhile they make stupid and unnecessary changes successful policy," she said.

ABC News' Hannah Prince contributed to this report.