Poll change in Canton raises suspicion of voter suppression
CANTON – Moving a polling location more than a mile away has stirred anger and suspicion of voter suppression among some Black residents in the city’s Fourth Ward.
About 3,500 registered voters in one precinct in Canton’s Ward 2 and three precincts in Ward 4 were notified of the change in late March or early April from the Stark County Board of Elections.
The mailed notice said that they would no longer vote at the former Antioch Baptist Church at 1844 Ira Turpin Way NE, a roughly 20-minute walk from Tuscarawas Street E. The church was on the northern boundary of Ward 4 where it adjoins Ward 2. It had been a polling location since at least 2012.
Instead, the residents would vote May 3 in Ward 6, about 1.3 miles away at the Canton Harbor High School, a charter school at 1731 Grace Ave. NE. It’s a 42minute walk from Tuscarawas Street E and Belden Avenue NE near where many of the polling site’s voters live.
While at the school to cast their ballots Tuesday, two Ward 4 voters who are Black objected to the change.
“Some of these folks don’t even drive, so how are they going to get here to vote?” Shelly Showalter asked. “They don’t want Black people to vote.”
“It’s too far to come (here) when you’re an older person or you need a ride,” said Joe Wood, 61. “Come on! Talk to me! Talk to everybody and find out if there’s closer places to go.”
What are the rules for choosing a polling location?
Ward 4 resident Henry Mack, 84, lives 1.4 miles from the prior polling location and 2.4 miles from the new Grace Street voting site.
On April 7 in an email to the Board of Elections, he called it “voter suppression of primarily African-american voters . ... This location is inconvenient and clearly designed to suppress the 4th Ward vote.”
“We’re the biggest ward in town. We shouldn’t have to go across town to vote in another ward,” he said later.
Stark County election officials, both Democrats and Republicans, deny any effort to suppress any turnout.
Board of Elections Member Kody Gonzalez, a Democrat, said once he and other elections officials learned last month of people’s dissatisfaction with the new location, it was too late to legally change it for the May 3 primary.
“It was the closest building we could find that was workable at the time we had,” Gonzalez said.
He and board Chairman Samuel Ferruccio, a Democrat, said they would consider any suggestions for future polling locations.
“If they want to move it to a different location, we’ll try to find a different location that’ll make everyone happy,” said Gonzalez, who added staff also chose Canton Harbor because it’s by a public bus line.
Travis Secrest, administrative assistant for the Board of Elections and a Republican, said that a polling location must comply with federal laws requiring accessibility for people with disabilities. It has to have enough square footage to host as many as 20 voting machines. It has to have enough parking.
Secrest said state law does not set a maximum distance a polling location can be from a voter’s home. And it does not require a polling location be in the voter’s precinct, city or township.
In 2010, Stark County had 180 polling locations. The county has consolidated to about 111, reducing the number of paid poll workers required and significantly cutting costs. But increasing the distance means more travel for some voters.
“We try to keep it close to the former polling location as much as possible. If people could get to Antioch then I’m assuming they can go one mile more,” Secrest said.
And the board staff sent out the notices of the poll location change in late March rather than February because “you don’t want people to forget, so you send it as close to the election as we can,” Secrest said.
Impact of Canton church closure
On Jan. 20, Antioch Baptist Church notified the Board of Elections that it could no longer host the Ira Turpin polling site. The church had to move because it could not reach an agreement with its landlord to continue using the building.
Board of Elections staff worked to move the polling location to St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church on Cherry Ave NE in Ward 2. But the church said on Feb. 8 that it had to decline hosting voters due to preparations for its 100th anniversary.
The Board of Elections without much discussion approved the change to Canton Harbor High School on Feb. 14, three days after board staff made their initial site visit to the school. It was one of two changes. The other was in Perry Township due to the doors of a church not being wide enough for voting machine storage cages.
‘No one asked us’
Members of the local neighborhood group Affairs of the Community said the new location was inconvenient and raised concerns about what they perceived as voter suppression in a mostly Black community. The members also were disappointed that the Board of Elections staff did not seek feedback from the public, which the law does not require.
At a meeting Monday of the association at Union Baptist Church in Ward 4, all of the 17 members present objected to having to vote at Canton Harbor High School.
The association’s president, Theodore Johnson, said the optics of the situation look horrible.
“We vote. We pay taxes. No one asked us,” said Johnson, who invited Board of Elections staff to the association’s meeting on June 6. “When stuff like this happens, the hair on the back of our necks is raised.”
Vetting process
Jeff Matthews, director of the Board of Elections, a Republican, and Regine
Johnson, the deputy director, a Democrat issued a statement Thursday.
They wrote that 297 people for the four precincts served by Canton Harbor High School cast ballots for the primary Tuesday, not including late-arriving ballots and provisional ballots. That’s an increase from the 283 who voted in the May primary in 2018 for those same precincts, before they were consolidated from five precincts.
Board staff considered nine locations, including Union Baptist Church. Board staff checked out the church on Google Street View. It seemed too small so they never visited the church.
However, the Google Street View image dates back to 2011. Johnson said around 2019, the church more than doubled in size as part of a remodeling.
“Why would you just sit there, and do that without getting up, and looking to see?” asked Councilwoman Chris Smith, D-4, who questioned why board staff did not ask her for suggestions.
One venue said no. Another, the Canton Memorial Civic Center would not be available for a possible August primary due to Pro Football Hall of Fame festivities.
Board staff eliminated Crenshaw Middle School, AIM Academy Belden School and JRC Learning Center because they lacked direct access between parking spaces for people with disabilities and their gymnasiums.
The statement said the heat at St. Paul AME Church, a former polling site, wasn’t working and a person at the church indicated the church might soon sell its building.
It’s not clear why St. Benedict Catholic Church on Tuscarawas Street E and Belden Elementary, which were proposed by Affairs of the Community, were not considered. But Secrest said the board tries to avoid schools because school staff use most of the parking spots and the challenges of keeping voters in an area separate from students.
Canton Harbor has high school students who are away from campus much of the day for work and it has a large gymnasium separate from the rest of the school that can host 20 voting machines.
Gonzalez, the elections board member, said as far as he’s aware no past polling location change — which can range from none to five a year — has sparked this many objections.
“Lesson learned,” he said. “Obviously, it’s going to be a question I ask next time if we decide to move polling locations . ... I’ll have to ask if they’ve reached out.”
Reach Robert at (330) 580-8327 or robert.wang@cantonrep.com. Twitter: @rwangrep.