Category: Democracy

It was a single question about continuing a penny sales tax in his rural southwest Georgia county, but voter Stancil Tootle will never know if his answer was what he intended. Tootle is blind, and while sighted voters take for granted their ability to visually verify their ballot choices, it requires the use of an […]

Alan Abramowitz Title: Professor of Political Science Organization: Emory University When local and national media needed to make sense of the most recent election season — which at times seemed senseless and mostly contentious — they turned to Alan Abramowitz. The Emory University political science professor has built an enviable reputation as one of the leading scholars […]

Shelby Swan Age: 27 Occupation: Marketing Residence: Cobb County Community work: Works with The People’s Uprising, a metro Atlanta coalition of organizers as well as ProtectTheVoteGa, a coalition of grassroots organizations in Georgia fighting to stop voter suppression. The weekend after the March 13, 2020, police-shooting death of a young black medical worker named Breonna Taylor, Cobb County resident Shelby Swan […]

Stella Silva-Garcia Age: 47 Occupation: Stay-at-home mom and co-owner of an information technology firm. Family: She and her husband have two sons, 22, and 9. Residence: Alpharetta Community work: No Safe Seats, a community group of suburban moms in North Fulton and Cobb counties. Georgia Familias Unidas, a group working with undocumented workers at poultry plants in Gainesville, Ga. Member of Protect […]

While Georgia lawmakers were enacting what some would call a regressive voting law last month, Virginia was creating landmark voting measures. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam restored voting rights to ex-felons, overriding the state’s constitutional mandate that permanently disenfranchises citizens with past felony convictions. He also approved the Voting Rights Act of Virginia. Virginia is the first state […]

Alfred “Shivy” Brooks Age: 37 Occupation: Teaches economics, personal finance, and government at Charles Drew High School in Clayton County. Residence: East Atlanta Community work: Founded Teachers for Good Trouble. Member of NAACP Atlanta and The People’s Uprising, a nonprofit organization of elected officials, community residents, and college students. Don’t call Alfred Brooks a community organizer. “I’m a community change agent,” […]

Eldredge Washington Age: 31 Occupation: Entrepreneur, podcaster, and producer Residence: Atlanta’s West End Community work: Founder and executive director of Motivated Adults Developing Excellence (MADE). Protesting police killings. Saving long-forgotten black graves from the crush of bulldozers. Helping a toddler secure a much-needed kidney. Eldredge Washington has spent the last dozen years speaking up for people who can’t. Some days that […]

Hannah Gebresilassie (aka Hannah Joy)  Age: 30 Occupation: Journalist Background: Daughter of Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees who came to the United States in the 1980s. Residence: metro Atlanta Community work: Founded the Promote Positivity Movement in 2018. She also is involved in Optimize the Vizion; Justice for Georgia; and Habeshas Vote. It is the middle of the afternoon on an overcast Thursday in March. Hannah […]

This summer, Coloradans will enjoy the economic fruits of Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game, thanks to Georgia’s controversy over how it plans to handle future elections. In a last-ditch, good-riddance jab, Gov. Brian Kemp in an appearance on Fox News blasted MLB’s decision to leave Georgia for Colorado saying both states have similar voting regulations. So who’s […]

The fight over how Georgia will conduct future elections has gone straight for the wallet. Major League Baseball, the nation’s oldest professional sports league, pulled its prestigious All-Star Game and Draft out of Atlanta in protest of a new voting law. MLB’s departure will strip metro Atlanta businesses of millions of dollars in revenue. If anyone had […]

Major League Baseball threw Georgia an economic curveball Friday in protest of the state’s new controversial election law. The professional baseball association announced it will move the 2021 All-Star Game and MLB Draft, which was set for Atlanta this summer, to another yet-to-be-determined city. The decision to move the All-Star Game was “the best way […]

A driver who plows into a crowd of protestors blocking a street and injures or kills several people before driving away would conceivably be protected from prosecution while the protestors who blocked the street would face felonies. And if you’ve ever participated in any form of civil disobedience, you can kiss your chances of working […]

Georgians interminably entangled in the parole system may finally have a chance at getting on with their lives through an early end to probation under a bill headed to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk. Senate Bill 105 creates a uniform path to getting more Georgians serving supervised felony probation quickly through the system and out of the […]

Legal challenges against Georgia’s new law governing voting procedures are ramping up in earnest. Six multicultural civil rights groups filed a lawsuit against the state Sunday night to block enforcement of SB 202, an omnibus bill signed last week by Gov. Brain Kemp that some argue suppress voting rights in the state. The plaintiffs, which include the […]

Georgia’s battle to overhaul its elections process is headed to court. Hours after Gov. Brian Kemp signed a sweeping, controversial elections bill into law Thursday, voting rights groups filed a lawsuit in federal court in Atlanta. The 35-page complaint says minority voters will be harmed by the new legislation, which, plaintiffs say, illegally suppresses voters’ rights and […]

A comedian and a pair of nonagenarians are bringing a little levity to Georgia’s battle over voting rights. In two separate videos, the three Georgia women urge Georgia legislators to vote down Senate Bill 202, a new omnibus bill introduced last week to replace an earlier one. The new bill seeks to ban people from giving food and […]

The Ragin’ Cajun is back. We last checked in with national political strategist James Carville in January when he did a post-mortem of the 2020 presidential election and January’s twin senate runoff races which hoisted Georgia into the national political spotlight. In typical Carvillian fashion, the Georgia-born, Louisiana-raised lawyer gave his assessment of Georgia Republicans’ […]

In a highly-unprecedented move, a coalition of civil rights and grassroots groups ramped up pressure on Georgia’s top corporations to get them to oppose voter suppression bills in the Georgia legislature. The group led by Black Voters Matter called on the leaders of AFLAC, Coca-Cola Co., Delta Air Lines, The Home Depot, Southern Co., and […]