For Immediate Release: August 25, 2023

Contact: media@colorofchange.org 

 

The Atlanta City Government Employs Voter Suppression Tactics to Prevent Cop City Referendum

 

Following the news that the Atlanta City Council will manually verify each signature of a referendum petition aimed at stopping the opening of Cop City, Color Of Change released the following statement from Michael Collins, Senior Director of State and Local Government Affairs:

“The Atlanta Police Foundation’s plans to build Cop City” have seen unprecedented resistance and now over a hundred thousand Atlanta voters have asked for a referendum. The community must have its say.  Rather than listening to the constituencies who put them in Office, the City Council plans to manually verify each of 104,000 signatures collected by the Stop Cop City Coalition, a technique widely seen as a tool of voter suppression by democracy experts.“

“This move by the Atlanta City Government is the latest attempt to suppress the voice of the city and plow ahead with a deeply unpopular project. Color Of Change will always fight for a democracy that puts the power of voters first, a democracy that would never use suppression as a political weapon. In Atlanta, we urge the City Council and Mayor Dickens to consider the voices of their communities, and to reject the use of this underhanded technique.”

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