Dinwiddie County, Virginia

In the Darville Precinct, in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, the existing polling place was destroyed by fire in 1998. Soon thereafter, the County Electoral Board recommended that the Dinwiddie County Board of Supervisors designate the Cut Bank Hunt Club as the new polling place for the precinct. The board of supervisors adopted that recommendation. The Hunt Club is a privately owned hunting club with a predominantly Black membership. Seven months after the first election where the Hunt Club was used as a polling place, a petition with 105 signatures was presented to the Board requesting a change in the polling place location from the Hunt Club to Mansons United Methodist Church. The petiton stated the desire of the signers that the polling place be more "centrally located." It also noted that Mansons Church had agreed to serve as the polling place and described it as "well lighted, good parking, [and] handicap accessible [sic]." The overwhelming number of signatories were of White residents (all but three). Also, 23 of the people who signed the petition were not registered in the Darvills precinct, and only 18 of the 105 signatures were of persons who had voted at the Hunt Club in the 1998 election. Just prior to a hearing on this change, Mansons Church withdrew its offer to serve as a polling place. A few days later, Bott Memorial Church, located at the extreme eastern end of the Precinct, with an overwhelmingly White congregation, offered its building as a polling place. At a hearing on August 4, 1999, the board of supervisors adopted a resolution changing the polling place to Bott Church. Most Blacks live in the western portion of the precinct. However, because Dinwiddie County is covered by Section 5 of the VRA, they had to submit this change in polling place location to the Department of Justice for a determination that the change would not have a negative impact on minority voters. In its letter denying approval for the change, DOJ stated that "the sequence of events leading up to the decision to change the polling place to Bott Church tends to show a discriminatory purpose." The Department cited the fact that the decision to change the location to the Bott Church was made after the Darvills polling place was changed to a location operated by Black persons, and after submission of a petition seeking a change that was signed almost exclusively by White citizens. The denial letter also noted that "[p]rocedural and substantive departures from the normal practice also tend to show a discriminatory purpose," noting that statements regarding the preeminent need for a "central location" for the polling palce were immediately abandoned when the Bott Church site became available. DOJ also concluded that the proposed change "will impose a significantly greater hardship on minority voters than white voters" and that the county provided "no information that the polling place move will not have this disparate impact." Based on these concerns, DOJ prevented the move of the Darvills polling site from the Hunt Club to the Bott Church.