close
close

Ourladyoftheassumptionparish

Part – Newstatenabenn

    • Voters in battleground Georgia urged to show up on Election Day
    patheur

    Voters in battleground Georgia urged to show up on Election Day

    Sakege Posted on

    play

    RIVERDALE, Ga. – Verdaillia Turner and other canvassers fanned out across the parking lot of a Walmart here Monday, placing voter information cards on windshields and urging customers to vote.

    The retired teacher sported a bright orange sweatshirt that said “The Power of the Vote” and called out to people loading their cars and pushing shopping carts.

    “Don’t forget to vote,” said Turner, 68, who was campaigning for the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, a social justice and voting rights group.

    “Hello miss. Did you vote?” he asked.

    Turnout had been low in early voting in Clayton County, worrying organizers in this battleground state, where turnout could determine who wins the presidency.

    The turnout story was different across the state, where more than 4 million people — more than half of all registered voters in 90 of the state’s 159 counties — had already voted. cast votes before the time of early voting ended on Friday.

    “This was the most successful early voting period in Georgia history because voters trust the process,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a statement Saturday. “Four years of progress brought us here. We are prepared and battle-tested, regardless of what the critics say. And we are going to hold accountable those who interfere in our elections.”

    Still, get-out-the-vote advocates weren’t about to rest.

    In the days leading up to election day, activists from the national and local civic participation groups He stopped by barbershops, attended religious services and visited college campuses across the state encouraging Georgians to vote.

    “We’re in the game,” said Turner, president of the Georgia Federation of Teachers. “This state can make or break any candidate. That’s why we’re doing our part to make sure that, especially people who feel disenfranchised, feel empowered and use their power at the ballot box. “This is one of the few times when we, as a people, have a direct voice and vote in this democracy.”

    Further: Three generations, one mission: three women’s quest to protect the vote

    Turn to prayer for healing

    Earlier on Monday, at a prayer breakfast and rally at Grits & Eggs restaurant, speaker after speaker called for more Georgians to vote and more healing for a divided country.

    Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie urged attendees to “encourage those who are not in this room to take fire and speak out at the ballot box.”

    “Let’s not let us waste a vote,” he said to a chorus of amenes. “Let’s not let this moment pass.”

    LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, compared get-out-the-vote efforts leading up to Election Day to a relay race.

    “We’re in the final stretch,” he said. “We’re going to go out and do what we have to do.”

    Shortly after the morning rally, two busloads of canvassers headed to Clayton County, a few miles from Atlanta.

    In the Walmart parking lot, Damaris McDee, 67, a volunteer with the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, joined other canvassers reaching out to people near a crab restaurant and a health center.

    “Have you voted yet?” McDee asked passersby while also handing out leaflets and buttons.

    She nodded and gave a thumbs up to those who answered yes. McDee of Stone Mountain, Georgia, said he wanted to spend the day encouraging others to vote.

    “The things that are on the ballot are important,” he said. “Our freedom is on the ballots. Democracy is at the polls.”

    “We don’t want to go back,” he said.

    Kimberlé Crenshaw, co-founder and executive director of the Black Policy Forum, a social justice think tank, also joined the pollsters. He called Georgia the “battlefield of battlefields.”

    “I don’t want to wake up on Wednesday and ask if any of us could have done more to make our voices heard in this crucial election,” Crenshaw said. “I don’t want to wake up a year from now when the consequences are clear: If we don’t exercise our political rights, we will lose them.”

    Crenshaw said Georgia has played an important role in African American history.

    “This is the heart of our legacy,” he said. “If we don’t step forward here, what messages will we send to the rest” of the country?

    Turner, the retired Stone Mountain teacher, said she will continue to help urge voters to vote and that she is not alone. In some places, he said, more people have went to work at the polls and help with scrutiny.

    “If anything, it’s lit a fire for more people to say, ‘Oh, let me get involved.’ This is real,” said Turner, who stopped to talk to a mother with children about the vote. “We are confident that the system will work. All we have to do is make sure those votes come in and we need Georgia to attend. And so far they have been doing it.”

    Sakege
    View all posts

    You Might Also Like