Fayette County has decided to fight a federal order that recently changed the way its residents vote in elections.
Attorneys for the county were expected to file an appeal Wednesday afternoon challenging a judge’s order to replace the county’s at-large voting system with five districts, one of which is made up mostly of minority voters.
The Board of Commissioners’ appeal is in lockstep with the school board, which voted March 14 to also appeal Judge Timothy Batten’s order aimed at creating a more accessible voting system for the county’s blacks. Blacks make up 21 percent of the county’s population, but no black has ever been elected to Fayette’s school board or County Commission.
The county’s challenge comes on the heels of recent candidate qualifying for the May 20 primary, which drew three black candidates in the school board and County Commission races. No black candidate is running for the school board in District 5, the new majority-minority district created as a result of a lawsuit the NAACP filed challenging Fayette’s at-large voting system. The civil rights group sued the county in August 2011 on behalf of a group of black Fayette residents who say at-large voting has shut blacks out of county-level office.
The federal Voting Rights Act favors district voting, and few at-large systems remain in Georgia after nearly 100 challenges to such a system have succeeded since 1982.
The fight in Fayette appeared to be downshifting late last month when both sides reached an agreement with the judge over a district map that allowed the county to go forward in preparation of this year’s election season. County officials held off appealing Batten’s decision until after the recent qualifying period, which appears to have added fuel to their motivation to appeal.
What appears to be at issue is what many people have valued most about living in Fayette County. Many feel their “way of life” will be coming to an end. They also say the fight is really more about old-fashioned party politics, not race. Others say the county needs to get in step with changing times and demographics and stop wasting taxpayers’ money.
County Commission Chairman Steve Brown, a Republican who is running for re-election, called the push for a district system “politically motivated.”
He said a black candidate initially qualified to run as a Democrat in the District 5 school board race but withdrew at the last minute. That move, Brown said, protects incumbent Leonard Presberg, the lone Democrat on the board and in the race. Presberg, who faces Republican opposition, backs district voting and cast the lone vote on the school board opposing the appeal. He has called it a waste of money.
Dan Lowry, a longtime Fayette resident and a plaintiff in the NAACP lawsuit, agrees with Presberg.
“This is at a time when the school system is laying off teachers, closing schools and increasing class sizes,” said Lowry, a resident of the county for 25 years. “Yet they want to spend money fighting the judge’s decision.”
Lowry said the county has changed, becoming “a very diverse county, with people from all racial, ethnic and cultural groups.”
“It’s time for the county to get rid of the 190-year-old at-large voting system,” he said. “The citizens of Fayette County need to understand the officials need to stop wasting taxpayers’ money and come into the 21st century.”
Lowry said he would expect county officials to favor the new voting system. “Then,” he said, “they’d only have to be concerned about their district.”
But county officials who are challenging Batten’s order say their concern is that district voting will create separate political fiefdoms where one cohesive government now operates.
“I’m convinced Fayette has its quality of life and schools because elected officials … are equally responsible for everything that goes on in their respective programs countywide,” said school board member Bob Todd, who voted to appeal. “I have the entire county to be responsible for.”
Todd, who is not seeking re-election, said the people he has talked to in the community oppose district voting.
“They’re concerned about changing the whole way we’ve operated,” he said, “and therefore it may change the nature of the community in which we live.”
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