Friend,
I’m disappointed, although not entirely surprised, by the voting fiasco Georgians experienced this week.
In a rush to implement new voting machines during a presidential election year (and a pandemic, no less) Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger failed to adequately train and prepare election officials and polling locations ahead of Election Day.
The result was hours-long wait times for many, missing or malfunctioning voting machines, provisional ballot issues, and ill-equipped election officials. It should be noted that, once again, Black communities are getting the short end of the stick. In Atlanta alone, home to the largest Black population in Georgia, 80 polling places were closed ahead of Election Day and 16,000 registered voters had to vote at ONE polling location.
What we witnessed on Tuesday was a failure of leadership and a failure of democracy. These failures are especially notable – and concerning – for Georgians given our history of voter suppression.
The people of Georgia deserve better. Every voice must be heard and every vote must be counted. That’s why I’m personally calling on Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to own his mistakes and to take steps NOW to ensure these same issues don’t plague the election in November.
Sign your name now if you agree that Raffensperger should implement proper training protocols and advance preparations so that every voice is heard this November.
Thanks for standing with me on this,
Matt
