Atlanta Hundreds of volunteers, operating in three shifts daily, can be found all across Atlanta collecting signatures of residents to push for a ballot referendum in November on the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, better known as “Cop City.” They can be found at farmer

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/941284

The city rules around gathering signatures are convoluted. The person signing must reside in Atlanta and have been eligible to vote in the November 2021 election. The person collecting the signatures has to be an Atlanta resident, and each signature must be witnessed by someone who has been registered to vote since Oct. 4, 2021. In some cases, this means that two canvassers are needed in order to collect each signature.

On July 7, four anti-Cop City activists who live in DeKalb County — a majority Black, working-class county located a few miles away from the proposed site of the militarized police training facility — filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Atlanta and the state of Georgia. They charge that the Atlanta law is unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds, saying the law “endangers any effort to successfully petition local governments to amend or repeal laws by popular vote.”

Those who will be most impacted by Cop City — including by the constant sound of gunfire, vehicle-driving exercises, a burn tower, urban warfare training and the environmental devastation Cop City will cause — not only cannot vote, but also can’t participate in making the referendum possible. No date has been set for the court hearing.