Today, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (“LDF”) and a group of local Louisiana partners sent a letter urging the Caddo Parish Commission to support the adoption of an additional early voting site. The recent decision by the Louisiana Governor and Secretary of State to move the date of the election to November 13, 2021 affords this Commission the opportunity to establish an additional early voting location in time for the early voting period. Caddo Parish encompasses 852 square miles but currently plans to have only one early voting location open, meaning some voters will have to travel up to 50 miles to cast their ballot early. During the 2020 election, Caddo Parish voters waited in lines extending for blocks in Shreveport – the largest city in Caddo and a metro hub for northwest Louisiana. The opportunity for all Caddo voters to cast their ballots is unnecessarily suppressed by limiting early voting to one location and this especially disadvantages voters of color and rural voters.
Read the full letter here.
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Founded in 1940, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is the nation’s first civil and human rights law organization. LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957—although LDF was originally founded by the NAACP and shares its commitment to equal rights. LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is a multi-disciplinary and collaborative hub within LDF that launches targeted campaigns and undertakes innovative research to shape the civil rights narrative. In media attributions, please refer to us as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund or LDF.
