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ATLANTA, GA — We here in Georgia are taking plans to vote very seriously. From over a 100-year history of Jim Crow voter suppression to the recent memory of a stolen election in 2018, we will not be deterred!
Just two years ago our current Governor Kemp rigged his election victory over Stacy Abrams through a tsunami of voter suppression. Georgia was among 21 States that raced to pass restrictive voting legislation after gutting of the Voting Rights Act in 2013. With preclearance rendered impotent, restrictive voter ID laws, voter purges, and massive precinct closures took hold even beyond the South. These were the conditions in 2018. The 2020 elections face a new set of complications: voting during an uncontrolled pandemic.
All 50 States determine their own voting procedures. Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Indiana, with a combined 34 million voters, will not allow absentee ballots for the reason of COVID-19. Millions who applied for absentee ballots are still anxiously awaiting them. Some states require absentee ballots to be received by November 3. Others permit ballots to be postmarked by the election day and received anywhere from 3 to 14 days after.
Multiple lawsuits are in process about deadlines to count absentee ballots. The New Georgia Project won a case to extend the vote count by three days after Election Day so long as ballots are postmarked by the 3rd. But that was reversed. Now only ballots received by 7pm on November 3 will be counted. Undaunted, the response to defend the democratic right to vote has been unprecedented.
Never have so many organizations moved so rapidly to mobilize for voting. Recruitment and training of new poll workers is ubiquitous. From offering water, snacks and a watchful protective eye to long lines of voters, to certification as poll workers trained to troubleshoot machines and/or registration issues, thousands of people have signed up in defense of democracy.
The technologies used to spew misinformation about the vote are now also in the hands of thousands who refuse to concede the electoral arena to a blatantly fascist agenda. This election is a continuation of massive social uprisings over the dual violence of the pandemic and police murders underscored by extreme economic insecurity. The follow up and follow through proceeding Election Day will forge even deeper and broader bonds of unity conscious that ‘Nobody is Free Until Everybody is Free.” (Fannie Lou Hamer).
