Increased Voter Engagement, Not Disenfranchisement, Must Be Our Goal

By: Helen Butler for the Election Protection Coalition

Over the years, Georgia developed an unfortunate reputation as a bastion for voter suppression and avid disenfranchisement for communities of color. Despite that dark past, voters decided throughout 2020 and again in the January Senate runoffs that they would not be deterred from fulfilling their most fundamental duty as participants in our democracy. They did everything they could to get out the vote and showed up in record numbers on three separate occasions.

As the eyes of the world were on Georgia during this election season, we proved what we were made of, rising to the challenge of combating the circumstances that might otherwise prevent people from fully exercising their right to vote.

Early last year, civic engagement organizations across the state pivoted our efforts to keep people safe amid the pandemic while continuing to expand the vote. And our efforts were successful. With more than 3 million votes cast via early in-person and absentee ballots for the January 5th runoff elections, we approached the level of early voter turnout that we’d seen during the 2020 General Election. These levels of unprecedented voter participation far-surpassed early voting totals across the state from elections past, and did so despite the still looming presence of COVID-19, a disease that to date has afflicted nearly 750,000 Georgians.

While there were certainly several factors that contributed to the massive voter turnout we’ve experienced across the state, we firmly believe that the availability of early in-person and no-excuse absentee vote by mail options were essential to securing Georgians the opportunity to vote.

By all accounts, we have just lived through the most successful elections in Georgia history — not because of who won, but because of how many people choose to take part in the process. Our call now must be the continued expansion of the vote, and any efforts to curtail voter participation must be quashed.

Following record turnout in the Senate runoffs, word began to spread about attempts to roll back all of the wonderful gains in voter participation that we’ve seen this year. In the past week, those rumors have come to life with a series of Senate Bill that seek to roll back all the progress we’ve made with the help of absentee ballots.

We cannot afford for future elections to be hindered, and the hard work of so many Georgians to be undermined, by those who resist the notion that every person should be able to meaningfully engage the democratic process. Moving forward, we must keep the momentum going rather than falling back on easily dismissable and false claims of voter fraud. To be clear, no one deserves to have their ability to vote infringed, and policy changes that might impose new voter ID requirements or limit early voting options do just that.

We will continue to press for policies and measures that will ensure that voters in Georgia have the freedom to choose the method of voting that works best for them, whether by mail or in person. In doing so, our focus should be on plans to increase ballot drop off locations and the implementation of strategies against the many problems with long lines and overcrowding at polling locations that took place over the past year.

The last several months have proven just how much our voices matter and our votes count, and the decisions that get made at the ballot box have very real consequences for our daily lives. When the history books close on this chapter in Georgia, readers should be able to look back in pride at the way the state treated its voters and supported our democracy. A new day is on the horizon for Georgia and we cannot risk allowing the voter suppression tactics we’ve seen so many times before rear their ugly heads again.