The Great Beaufort County Voter Suppression Scandal of 2008

In the late summer of 2008, shortly after her ninety-sixth birthday, my Aunt Mary began a long, slow fade into what was to be her final year. My mother and aunts were all living together in my grandmother’s house in Beaufort, and at the time I spent just about every weekend down there with them—or at least two out of every three. Aunt Mary had several health issues: she’d been struggling with scoliosis for many years and was very hard of hearing, even with her hearing aids.