The US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Beaumont Divison Tuesday granted a temporary restraining order to prohibit poll workers from harassing Black voters at a polling center in Beaumont, Texas. The order follows a lawsuit filed by Beaumont’s NAACP chapter alleging instances of harassment and racial discrimination at one of the county’s voting centers.
Beamont’s NAACP chapter filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order on Monday evening. The motion claimed that without court intervention there would be “irreparable injury” to hundreds of Black voters who vote at the John Paul Davis Community Center on Election Day. The court held an expedited hearing on the motion late Monday evening.
Judge Michael Truncale granted the motion in part, prohibiting election workers from (1) ordering voters to recite their addresses before allowing them to vote, (2) positioning themselves in order to view voter ballots, and (3) turning away any eligible voters. The order is only applicable to the John Paul Davis Community Center.
The complaint filed Monday alleges that poll workers repeatedly asked Black voters to recite their addresses even after they were checked in to vote and did not ask the same of white voters. The poll workers also allegedly watched and followed Black voters as they filled out their ballots and helped only white voters scan their ballots into voting machines. The complaint describes the atmosphere of the community voting center as “hostile” and intimidating” in violation of Black voters’ rights under the Voting Rights Act, Fourteenth Amendment and Fifteenth Amendment.