Since its founding in 1913, the Rotary Club of Atlanta, whose membership is made up of business and civic leaders across our city, has been committed to ‘service above self.’ As the fourth largest Rotary Club in the world, our membership is compelled to lead the way and bring this concept of “service above self” into play whenever our city needs us.
Today’s Rotary Club is not the club of old; the modern Rotary is building on a long and storied history of being “the room where it happens” — that is, being the place where business and civic leaders gather to talk about controversial issues with mutual respect, with solutions in focus and with a can-do attitude.
It’s a legacy that started when the Atlanta Rotary stepped up to bail out Georgia Tech when it neared bankruptcy a century ago; it is the spirit that led to Atlanta Rotary’s founding of the United Way, and the modern sensibility that led us to address issues like human trafficking, and food insecurity during the pandemic.
The question on the minds of Atlanta Rotary’s leadership today: Is there anything more important than helping to make Georgia elections a model of integrity and bipartisan participation?
Ensuring that the State of Georgia’s upcoming election is both secure and fair has been elevated to a “Season of Service” for our club, and we invite the entire business community to join us in serving our communities by doing all we can to support successful elections between now and November.
Strong civic leadership, high voter turnout, and robust engagement in our state and local government directly contributes to building a high quality of life. It is not only the outcomes of elections, but the process of voting and certifying elections that makes our city and our state a great place to live and to do business.
The Atlanta Rotary Club recently hosted Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who offered a candid assessment of Georgia elections, which were in the spotlight during the last Presidential election cycle.
You’ll recall that over the last eight years, Georgia has continued to set records for voter turnout and election participation, seeing the largest increase in average turnout of any other state in the 2018 midterm election, and record turnout in 2020 and 2022. Many of us remember long lines and headlines that called election security into question.
Secretary Raffensberger reports that Georgia has since made strides in improving access to voting as well as instituting protocols to smooth the process. For example, Georgia was the first state in the country to implement the trifecta of automatic voter registration, at least 17 days of early voting, and no-excuse absentee voting. Georgia also requires photo IDs for voting and has taken steps to ensure that only American citizens are on our voter registration rolls.
But the state can’t do it alone — business leaders are trusted sources in our community and can and should support fair, secure elections. There are limitations to what government and officials can do, and therefore it is up to us as business and civic leaders to follow through and do the things that we can to create election security.
There are two primary ways businesses can participate in the 2024 election season:
- Support voter participation and increase turnout by removing barriers to civic engagement. Use your existing channels of communication to hold voter registration drives, provide reminders for early voting and election day voting, and share nonpartisan actionable resources and reminders with your employees and your community.
- Support poll worker programs, which are essential to a fair, accurate and secure voting process. Serving as a poll worker (and making it possible for your employees to do the same) serves the community and fosters a sense of service within your company. Know that state law requires that employers provide two hours of time to employees to allow for early voting or general election voting; consider giving your employees time to volunteer as poll workers as well. In addition to being of service to your community, you’ll help ensure that no Georgia voter spends more than one hour in line to vote on election day.
- Lead with knowledge and fact-based information about Georgia elections. Even if you can’t volunteer to be a poll worker, go through the training so that you can be a knowledgeable citizen and voter, so that you can leverage your role as a trusted leader to be a voice of calm when election integrity comes into question.
Civic engagement is not an obligation but rather an opportunity to play an active role in the health and wellbeing of our communities, and to model behavior of business in service to the community.
Beyond this “Season of Service,” your Atlanta Rotary is spearheading the Early Childhood Champions Initiative, a direct response to Mayor Andre Dickens’ call for public-private investment to make Atlanta the best city in the nation in which to raise a child. We invite you to join the Rotary Club of Atlanta in instituting a season of service during this election season and beyond.
