Early voting sites in two of Winston-Salem’s prominent minority neighborhoods are in jeopardy after the Forsyth County Board of Elections approved a plan last week that moves sites at Winston-Salem State University’s Anderson Center and the Sprague Street Recreation Center to other locations.
The plan, which includes 15 early voting sites around the county, was approved by the Republican majority of the board Friday and will be submitted to the State Board of Elections for consideration in the next week. A second plan, drafted by the board’s lone Democrat, Fleming El-Amin, will also be submitted to the state board.
El-Amin said he kept the Anderson Center and Sprague Street locations in his plan to ensure the African-American and Hispanic populations that make up the majority of east and southeast Winston-Salem have easy access to early voting sites. The majority plan, submitted by Republican board members Ken Raymond and Stuart Russell, does away with those sites in favor of an additional site in the southwest portion of the county and a site further east.
UPDATE: Chris Lawrence points out that the county in which this took place was not one of the 40 counties in North Carolina which used to be subject to preclearance. A good argument for making preclearance broader!