Wednesday, March 24, 2004
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Wednesday, March 24, 2004 |
| Minority voter registration not keeping pace with Fayette’s population rise By J. FRANK LYNCH The number of African-Americans registered to vote in Fayette County is growing, but not as quickly as the population as a whole, suggests data released recently. That’s why organized efforts to raise voter registration among Fayette’s African-American residents, as the local NAACP chapter did last Saturday during an appearance at Barnes & Noble by U.S. Rep. John Lewis and Judge Glenda Hatchett, are so critical. Several hundred people, both black and white, turned out Saturday for the book signings. It was unclear how many new Fayette voters were registered by the NAACP during the day. According to Secretary of State Cathy Cox, as of March 2, the day of Georgia’s Presidential preference primary, 56,501 Fayette Countians were registered to vote, the 14th highest total among all of Georgia’s 159 counties. Of those, 7,009 or roughly 12.4 percent were African-American, including 3,945 women and 3,064 men. That would be on par with the 2000 Census report that the county’s African-American population made up about 11.5 percent of the total of 91,283. But Fayette County’s black population has continued to rise in the years since by about 1 to 2 percent per year, according to the Atlanta Regional Commission, and now represents about 15 to 17 percent of the total. About 60 percent of all of Fayette’s black voters are concentrated in two census tracts in the county’s unincorporated northern end, and not its cities. Most reside in the area covered by new House District 81 carved out by a federal judge as part of the latest legislative redistricting process. Rep. Virgil Fludd resides in District 81, which is bordered on the south by Ga. Highway 54 and stretches up Hwy. 314 nearly to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Both the Board of Education and Board of Commissioners are served by five members who must reside in individual districts within the county, but are actually elected by all voters countywide, meaning even a concentration of African-American voters would have little influence in countywide elections if race were a factor. The 1,332 black voters registered in Fayetteville is a number notably higher than the 1,047 who live in Peachtree City, especially considering that Peachtree City’s population of nearly 35,000 is more than double Fayetteville’s, estimated at around 14,000. Still, the largest majority of voters in both of Fayette’s largest cities remains white, representing 75 percent of all voters in Fayetteville and 89.5 percent of all registered voters in Peachtree City. In Tyrone, blacks represent 7.6 percent of the names on the voter rolls, while whites account for 88 percent of the 2,696 total. In Brooks, just three black voters were included among the 295 total registered, according to Cox’s office. It was the same in Woolsey, where the 97 registered voters included just three African-Americans.
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