Town hall that doubles as an Election Day polling site ordered to remove Black Lives Matter flags

A town hall in North Carolina may lose its polling site status over the flying of Black Lives Matter flags.

The town hall of Carrboro, located just outside Chapel Hill, was ordered by the North Carolina State Board of Elections to remove several Black Lives Matter flags that were hanging outside, following complaints from voters, a statement released Monday by the board says.

“We asked the town of Carrboro in Orange County to remove flags from an early voting site as a result of numerous complaints from voters,” the statement, provided to CNN by board spokesman Patrick Gannon, says. The complaints came in during the state’s early voting period, Gannon told CNN.

The statement explains that the board is “attempting to address any circumstances where voters feel intimidated or uncomfortable exercising their constitutional right to vote.”

Carrboro, however, refused to comply, according to the board. And though it’s too late to take away the town hall’s polling place status now — state law requires at least 30 days’ notice for affected voters — the board said it would no longer allow the building to be a polling site in the future if the flags continue to fly.

“(We) will take steps to ensure that this site is not used as a polling place in any future election without written assurances from town officials that the flags or other communication will not be present inside the buffer zone or voting enclosure during voting,” the board said in a statement.

Mayor Lydia Lavelle released a statement Wednesday defending the flags, saying they are an “expression of our community’s acknowledgment of and opposition to systemic and institutional racism.”

“How ironic that here in the South, with our legacy of disenfranchisement of Black people and ongoing efforts to deter Black people from voting, there is an argument that the words “Black Lives Matter” cause voter intimidation,” she wrote in the statement. “We can simultaneously consider the concerns of any voter who may feel offended by these words while also recognizing that the complaints of voter intimidation are disingenuous.”

North Carolina law dictates that “No person or group of persons shall hinder access, harass others, distribute campaign literature, place political advertising, solicit votes, or otherwise engage in election-related activity in the voting place or in a buffer zone which shall be prescribed by the county board of elections around the voting place.”

The buffer zone is 50 feet from the entrance of a polling center, North Carolina says.

Lavelle argued that the flags are nonpartisan and do not “constitute election-related activity under North Carolina law.” The Carrboro Town Hall has previously had Pride Flags and orange flags for gun violence awareness day, Lavelle said.

Carrboro’s town spokeswoman, Catherine Lazorko, told CNN that the mayor and Town Council chose to leave the flags in place after consulting with the town attorney.

Lazorko says the town voted unanimously to put up the flags in July.

The debate comes as the country grapples with the legacy of racism in the US as Americans headed to the polls on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump has referred to the Black Lives Matter movement as a “symbol of hate,” and others have argued the movement is anti-police. Supporters of the movement, which aims to eradicate systemic racism, have argued it’s about human rights and fighting racial inequality.