The long awaited 2018 Election Day is finally here, but a video making the rounds on social media makes it clear what kind of obstacles still face black voters in America.
Lila Guzman, the election judge and supervisor for Williamson County, has resigned in disgrace after a video of her screaming “GET OUT!” at a would-be black voter during early voting in Round Rock, Texas went viral on social media.
A @WilcoElections supervisor and judge has resigned following an incident in which she was caught on camera screaming at a confused voter. A woman who recorded the video was shocked at the judge's behavior — and so was her boss. https://t.co/fKYKHHkaTC @KVUE pic.twitter.com/j3v25VooFe
— Pattrik Perez (@PattrikPerez) November 6, 2018
“Get out. Get out. Get out. You are rude. You are not following the law. Go. Go” shouted Guzman at the very confused voter before threatening to (of course) call the cops during on November 2nd.
As soon as Guzman lost her cool, a bystander quickly began filming. “As soon as she started getting louder, I was like, ‘This is getting out of hand.’ So I began to record. [Guzman] did tell her she couldn’t vote there, but she didn’t say where in Travis [County]. The lady did have an accent. She could’ve been new to the country. I don’t know, but she needed some help” said the bystander.
It’s very telling that the white Guzman would rather react with anger and fury at a person of color failing to follow the rules instead of helping them and making sure that they did everything correctly — which is literally her job.
Williamson County Elections Administrator Chris Davis was forced to admit that Guzman had behaved appallingly. “Our supervisor loses her composure in the middle of this, and that’s not something that we ever train our poll workers, supervisors, election judges and clerks to do. We always train them and advise them to maintain control of the situation politely and answer voters’ questions and give voters options so situations like these don’t escalate.”
We can only hope that people will be able to keep their cool and do their jobs with a level head today. The country’s future depends on it.
Original reporting by Noor al-Sibai at Raw Story.
