Civil rights groups allege Gwinnett’s district maps violate Voting Rights Act

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A coalition of civil rights groups and lawyers are taking Gwinnett County to federal court, saying the school system’s and county commission’s political maps violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

“This case is illustrious of the fact that freedom is a constant struggle,” Georgia NAACP President Francys Johnson said in a press release. “In Georgia’s rural towns and counties to large cities, there has been a steady chipping away of the gains achieved under the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act and the redistricting process has been a major tool of retrogression. The NAACP will mortgage every asset we have to defend the unfettered access to the ballot. It was paid for with the blood, sweat and tears of our ancestors – it’s sacred.”

The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Georgia NAACP, the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, and seven registered Gwinnett voters. They argue the Gwinnett Commission’s and Board of Education’s maps “violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting strength of minority voters, and coupled with a pattern of racially polarized voting, deprive African American, Latino and Asian American voters of a fair opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.” You can read a copy of the complaint here.

The coalition says the county’s Board of Education district map “packs” roughly 74 percent of Gwinnett’s minority voters into one district — District 5 — and “splits the balance of the minority population across the other four districts where African Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans do not constitute a majority of the population.” The groups want the map to be redrawn to include another second majority-minority district “so that minority voters have a fair opportunity to elect candidates of their choice to the Gwinnett County Board of Education.

They also allege the county commission’s districting plan “unnecessarily divides Black, Latino, and Asian American voters between four single­-member districts, preventing them from combining to form a majority in any district.” They want two majority­-minority commission districts to be redrawn to give minority voters “the ability to elect candidates of their choice.”

Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee, the legal group that filed the lawsuit, said in a press release that minority voters make up approximately 43 percent of the voting age population in Gwinnett, “the most racially diverse county in the Southeastern United States.”

“Yet no minority candidate has ever won election to the County Board of Commissioners or Board of Education,” Clarke said. “We believe that the lack of diversity on these Boards is attributable to the current district maps which dilute minority voting strength by packing and fragmenting the minority population, combined with a pattern of racially polarized voting in which White voters typically vote as a bloc to prevent minority preferred candidates from willing elections. This lawsuit seeks to level the playing field to give minority voters a fair opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.”

“The decisions of these Boards impact the day­-to-­day lives of Gwinnett County residents in a myriad of ways, yet because of the packing and splitting of minority voters in the current district plans, minority candidates have been repeatedly defeated in Gwinnett County elections,” GALEO Executive Director Jerry Gonzales said in a statement. “District lines must be fairly drawn for minority communities to elect the representatives of their choice, to engage meaningfully with decision makers, and to make sure that their needs are addressed.” 

“We are not in a position to to comment on this litigation,” Gwinnett County Communications Director Joe Sorensen said in a statement. “Attorneys will be reviewing the lawsuit that has been field in federal court but not yet served on Gwinnett County. After a thorough review, attorneys will brief the board of commissioners and the board of registrations and elections.”

Sloan Roach, Gwinnett County Public Schools’ communications director, was not available for comment.