Voter voices: ‘I thought that was my voter registration’
By Jerry Mitchell | Originally published by Mississippi Today
“Voter Voices” is a series of Mississippians sharing their thoughts on voting rights, the state’s history of voter suppression and the new gerrymandering push embroiling Mississippi, the South and the nation after the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in a Louisiana case gutted the federal Voting Rights Act’s requirements for majority Black districts.
Carolyn Moore moved back to her native Mississippi in 2019. When she got her driver’s license in New Albany, a box on the form asked if she would like to register to vote.
She checked yes.
“I thought that was my voter registration,” she said. “When I went to vote for governor, I was told that I was not registered to vote.”
What happened aggravated her, she said. “That was something on the driver’s license form. It was very misleading.”
At the time, circuit clerks reported some problems with not receiving the information from people registering to vote when obtaining or renewing a driver’s license.
Moore couldn’t vote in that election, but she did go later to the county courthouse to register.
Later, she went to vote in a primary, she said. “As I approached the Democrats’ table, a white male poll worker said, ‘The Republican table is over here.’ He assumed that all white people would vote Republican.”
That encounter left her “hopping mad when he told me I was at the wrong table,” she said.
Moore has since joined the League of Women Voters. “If I had known then what I know now,” she said, “I would have reported it.”
This article was originally published by Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Source: Original Article
