Multiple area political organizations and politicians accused the Alachua City Commission this week of voter suppression and disenfranchisement after eliminating its top precinct for minority voters prior to the spring municipal election. 

During a regular meeting on Monday, the commission unanimously voted to close Precinct 53 at the Cleather Hathcock Community Center. 

Staff said the building will be under construction during the Apr. 14 election. Not only has the start date for the project not been given, but design plans have yet to be approved. 

All voters must vote at either Legacy Park Multipurpose Center (Precinct 3), located nearly two miles from Hathcock, or Turkey Creek Clubhouse (Precinct 63), located inside a gated community.  

The Alachua County Democratic Party (ACDP) and the Alachua County Labor Coalition (ACLC) have published releases criticizing the commission’s move as strategic. 

In a letter titled, “The Alachua County Democratic Party Blasts Transparent Voter Suppression in the City of Alachua,” the party said the city is shielding incumbent Commissioner Dayna Williams, whose Seat 3 will be contested in April, from accountability to her constituents with the “barrier to the ballot box,” and called on the city to reverse course. 

Williams did not attend Monday’s meeting, when the vote passed. 

“The City of Alachua Commission spoke loud and clear Monday,” said ACLS’s coordinator Bobby Mermer in the coalition’s release. “‘Working class and Black folks in Alachua shouldn’t vote. But if they insist, they must schlep to their overlords’ backyard to do so.” 

According to data from the Alachua County Supervisor of Elections Office (ACSOE), the Hathcock Community Center precinct secured 63% of all Black votes during the Apr. 8, 2025, election across Alachua’s three precincts. The center had the highest turnout for all minorities.  

Turkey Creek had the most white and Republican votes, and Legacy Park saw the largest Democratic turnout (see the included chart for a demographic breakdown of each precinct).

The precinct changes add more questions about voting ethics in the city following 11 cases of potentially ineligible votes discovered during the April 2025 election. 

Plans to renovate or build a new Hathcock Community Center have been in the works since the city hired Monarch Design Group in March 2025 to draft design plans.  

In June, Alachua’s Deputy City Clerk LeAnne Williams emailed the ACSOE that the Hathcock Center would potentially be under construction during the election. Williams said statutes required notifying voters of polling changes within 14 days of the election. 

During presentations of design plans and workshop feedback to the commission in August and September, City Manager Rodolfo Valladares never mentioned the precinct might close. 

Aaron Klein, the communications director for the ACSOE, told Mainstreet that their office had fielded multiple questions about Alachua’s upcoming election since Monday. 

While the ACSOE can provide support and training for officials working in the election, he said it can’t stop the Hathcock Center, or any other precinct, from closing. 

“It’s the city of Alachua’s discretion to make decisions about what polling places apply to their elections,” Klein said.  

As of Tuesday, Valladares emailed the ACSOE requesting examples of polling place agreement contracts.  

He said leaders from St. Matthew Baptist Church, which is less than 500 feet from the Hathcock Center, and the library said their spaces would be available to serve as precincts during the election and would prepare for inspections from the ACSOE.  

Less than 24 hours after Monday’s vote for the election proclamation, Seat 3 candidate Jackson Youmas posted on Facebook that it was “deeply disturbing” that no alternative precinct locations had been sought after. He said the government should make it easier for people to vote instead of harder. 

Commissioner Jacob Fletcher also posted that he was wrong to support closing the Hathcock Center. He said he voted under the impression that there was a legal obligation to do so by a certain deadline.  

Since reviewing the charter and state law, he said he now believes the “urgency” to close the Hathcock Center without public discussion or a timeline of when construction would begin was manufactured, not mandated. 

Fletcher said he asked Valladares to confirm the Hathcock Center’s construction start date, provide alternative locations closer than the two miles separating Hathcock voters from Legacy Park, and for a specific plan to “ensure no voter is left behind.” 

Valladares did not respond to Mainstreet’s request for comment. 

“We cannot live up to the promise of ‘The Good Life Community’ if we leave voters in the dark,” Fletcher posted. “Every resident deserves a transparent process and a fair election, and I will not rest until we fix this.” 

The ACDP also called on the city to provide a new precinct. It asked for an explanation for why the Hathcock Center can’t host a one-day voting event before construction begins and for the city to fund communication efforts to mitigate confusion around the closure for affected voters. 

“Dayna Williams and her developer backers think they can choose their voters by making it harder for our community to show up,” said Tyler Foerst, chair of the ACDP’s executive committee in the party’s letter. “They are mistaken. The voters see this for exactly what it is, and they will ensure Dayna Williams is the one sent walking on Election Day.”