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Monday was the first day in-person voting in Georgia. Dozens of Black senior citizens were forced to get off a bus taking them to a nearby polling station to cast their ballots.

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According to The Root, a county clerk for Jefferson County, Ga., ordered a senior center to take about 40 of its residents, which were all Black off the bus. Citing because local officials felt “uncomfortable” by allowing the seniors onto a bus with an “unknown third party.”

The third party, city officials were speaking about is Black Voters Matter, a non-partisan group that arranged for the bus to take the seniors to vote.

Black Voters Matter has been working with Black communities all across the state conducting voter outreach and engagement leading up to the midterm elections. Black Voters Matter invited the seniors onto their bus to head to their polling place. As they were preparing to leave, a director for the senior center ordered the voters off the bus the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. A Jefferson County administrator called the center to inform them of their decision.

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County Administrator Adam Brett said in a statement to the Atlanta newspaper, “Jefferson County administration felt uncomfortable with allowing senior center patrons to leave the facility in a bus with an unknown third party.”

“No seniors at the Jefferson County senior center were denied their right to vote,” Brett said.

However, LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, said the move was an intimidation tactic.

“Even in the absence of law, they will use tactics like intimidation and voter suppression,” Brown told Think Progress. “Somebody called the county commission, but there was nothing illegal or inappropriate.”

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