The stakes in Georgia

Today Georgians vote in the two U.S. Senate elections which will determine whether Republicans or Democrats control that legislative body. If the Rev. Rafael Warnock and Jon Ossoff prevail, our new President will have a chance of getting something done. If the GOPer incumbents win, expect stonewalling of everything, including funds to vaccinate against the coronavirus and to assist economic recovery.

Those are the national implications of this election. But this election also has huge stakes for democracy within Georgia. The New Georgia Project's Nsé Ufot explained what the election means for Georgians in the Atlanta Voice:

For too many years, Georgia’s conservative leaders have gotten used to cherry picking their voters. Instead of trying to appeal to a wider swath of voters, they have worked to deny voting rights to those Georgians whom they don’t care to represent, especially Black people. Thanks to extensive voter suppression tactics — from purging voters from the rolls, to withholding voter registrations under an “exact match” law, to shutting down precincts – these officials have worked, too often successfully, to suppress our votes.

... Even as more than 10,000 Georgians have lost their lives to COVID-19, Georgia Republicans are already working to walk back the measures taken to make voting safer in the face of the pandemic, recently unveiling a plan to restrict vote-by-mail and roll back the election laws that facilitated record-high turnout in the state in November. This move comes on the heels of a decision made by election officials in Cobb County to cut early voting locations by half ahead of the Georgia runoffs, which will disproportionately affect voters of color. 

... These suppression efforts are a response to the shifting power dynamics in Georgia: our representatives are afraid of our power and want to curtail it. Because of a multiracial coalition of Black, Brown, Gold, and progressive white voters, Georgia went blue in November. You see it in the numbers: our state had more than 6.6 million registered voters in 2016; this year, it reached an all-time high of 7.6 million, with registrations among Black, Latino, and Asian voters booming. 

... The defenders of the status quo have seen what Georgians can do when we all turn out to vote, and that’s why they’re scared.

Over the last month, it's been an education and sometimes a pleasure to phone Georgians about their election. UniteHERE callers have been thanked and blessed -- a lot.  Let's hope Georgians who have already voted, and those who turn out today, succeed in building a new, more inclusive future, for everyone, in their state. Just as in Washington, democracy itself is on the ballot in Georgia.