Activists say they have gathered enough signatures to force a vote on a controversial police training center, but officials say courts are preventing them from counting.
Atlanta officials refused to verify tens of thousands of signatures submitted on Monday by activists trying to stop, the latest setback for organizers who have accused the city of trying to illegitimately push the project forward.
“This is yet another disgraceful push by the city to stonewall democracy, showing that Mayor Dickens and the City of Atlanta fear the power of their constituents,” the Vote to Stop Cop City Coalition said in a statement. “The City was notified on Thursday of our intention to submit, yet was too cowardly to release any response, or even respond to our email, until after we arrived.”
The signature-gathering effort, unprecedented in its size in Georgia history, was the result of the work of hundreds of canvassers who spread out across the city over the past three months to convince voters that they should get to decide the project’s fate. The Atlanta City Council has repeatedly voted in favor of the $90 million, 85-acre campus, despite hours of outraged public testimony against the plan.
For a petition to be counted, the signatory must be a City of Atlanta resident who has been registered to vote since the 2021 city election. Forms can also be tossed if the signature does not match what officials have on file, a restriction that activists have decried as “voter suppression.”
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