LOUIS BROOKS
Tactic: Poll Closures
County: Upson
Occupation: Retired mill worker
Louis Brooks (89) has walked to cast a vote at his neighborhood polling place in Georgia’s predominantly black Lincoln Park neighborhood for over five decades, since African Americans were first allowed to vote if they passed a literacy test. Brooks didn’t vote in the 2016 Presidential election because local officials closed the polling station that he normally walked to and he would have had to travel more than two miles away. “I can’t get there. I can’t drive, and it’s too far to walk,” said Brooks, a black retired mill worker, and long-time Democratic Party supporter. He said he does not know how to vote by mail and doesn’t know anyone who can give him a ride.