The Southern Poverty Law Center has put Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Julie Marcus on notice that the county’s early voting setup could violate state and federal voting protections, escalating a years-long dispute over access in predominantly Black South St. Petersburg.

In a Sept. 25 letter, SPLC senior staff attorney Matletha Bennette asked Marcus to establish at least one early voting site in South St. Petersburg before the Nov. 3 general election. The letter also requests a secure ballot intake station and coordination with the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority to provide free transportation from South St. Petersburg to existing early voting locations.

The clock is ticking. Florida law requires early voting sites to be designated no later than 30 days before an election, making Oct. 4 the deadline. The statute also says sites must be geographically located to provide voters an equal opportunity to cast a ballot, “insofar as is practicable.”

Pinellas currently lists seven early voting locations for the general election, which will operate Oct. 19 through Nov. 1. Two are in St. Petersburg: the elections office at 501 First Avenue N. downtown and J.W. Cate Recreation Center at 5801 22nd Avenue N. Another is at the Gulfport Neighborhood Center. The remaining four are in Largo, Clearwater and Palm Harbor. There are none in South St. Petersburg.

“Black residents in South St. Petersburg have been asking for more than a decade for its elections office to give them fair opportunities to participate in early voting,” Bennette said in an SPLC statement. “Yet, every election cycle, this community is denied an early voting site.”

The history behind that claim reaches beyond the current election. A Legal Defense Fund report describing voting changes following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision said Pinellas election officials had refused requests from advocates for early voting sites within Black communities in South St. Petersburg.

The issue resurfaced formally in March, when nearly 50 civil rights organizations, churches, neighborhood groups, elected officials and civic leaders asked Marcus for a South St. Petersburg site, preferably in Childs Park or Zip codes 33711 and 33712. Signers included the Pinellas County Urban League, St. Petersburg NAACP, Childs Park Neighborhood Association, Black Voters Matter Fund, League of Women Voters of the St. Petersburg Area and St. Petersburg City Councilmember Corey Givens Jr.

SPLC’s new letter moves beyond that request and lays out three potential legal challenges: Florida’s geographic-access requirement, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the 14th and 15th Amendments’ protections against intentional racial discrimination in voting. The letter alleges potential violations; no court has ruled that Pinellas County’s current early voting configuration violates those laws.

Transportation is central to SPLC’s argument.

Its preliminary census analysis found that Black residents comprise about 46% of the population within a South St. Petersburg study area containing more than one-third of Pinellas County’s Black population. About 8.8% of occupied households there have no vehicle available, compared with 6.9% countywide. In at least one census block group that is more than 68% Black, SPLC found more than 73% of occupied households lacked a vehicle.

SPLC estimates that reaching the downtown elections office from selected predominantly Black neighborhoods can take 15 to 40 minutes by public transportation, and one to two hours on foot, compared with roughly eight to 13 minutes by car.

The geographically closer Gulfport site carries its own history. The March coalition letter said some Black voters remain reluctant to vote there because of Gulfport’s racial past, and cited voting data indicating Childs Park residents sometimes bypass Gulfport for more distant locations. SPLC repeats that argument in its legal notice.

That history has been debated publicly in Gulfport. A January St. Pete Catalyst Community Voices column documented residents’ accounts describing Gulfport as a former “sundown town,” while then-City Manager Jim O’Reilly disputed whether the designation had been established through official records.

Marcus has previously defended Pinellas’ broader voting system as offering several ways to cast a ballot. During August’s primary election, she pointed to voting by mail, multiple days of early voting and Election Day voting as providing voters flexibility.

Her office has also expanded early voting before. In 2022, Pinellas added J.W. Cate Recreation Center and Countryside Recreation Center, with Marcus saying at the time that data supported the additions and that 91% of county voters would then live within five miles of an early voting site.

SPLC argues the remaining geography still leaves South St. Petersburg on the wrong side of that equation. Its letter says the elections office has not publicly produced a geographic analysis demonstrating equal access, determined that a South St. Petersburg location is impracticable or identified alternatives considered after a previously proposed private facility was found ineligible.

Florida law gives Marcus another option. Beyond the usual list of government buildings eligible to serve as early voting sites, a supervisor can designate one additional location per election in an area without an eligible facility, provided it meets geographic-access and parking requirements.

That leaves four days between SPLC’s public warning and the statutory deadline. The county’s published list still showed seven sites as of Sept. 30.