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      Democrats again look to Black voters to win Georgia runoffs and take the Senate

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      As James Brown’s funk classic Say it loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud pulsed through the mobile sound system, Cliff Albright marched up a steep roadway, bellowing into a microphone trying to get people out of their doors.
      “Let’s go y’all,” he said. “Black voters matter every day, everywhere.”
      Albright and other members of the organization he co-founded, Black Voters Matter, walk with pride in these central Georgia neighborhoods. And for good reason.
      Turnout here in Houston county soared in the 2020 election. And although the county, staunchly Republican for decades, stayed red – Joe Biden narrowed the margin by over 6%. It’s in no small part due to the months of organizing here to mobilize the county’s Black voters, who make up around a third of the population.
      It was also the later vote tallies, from mail-in voting here in Houston county, that helped propel Biden past Trump to flip the state of Georgia. A fact that many people in these communities celebrate with a deep source of pride.
      “We put a lot of work in here,” Albright said, as he handed out literature, face masks and an invitation to a drive-in watch party of the evening’s US senate debate. “It’s been all year round, because we say Black votes matter 365. We do work not just around elections, but on the issues.”
      As early voting starts on Monday in the crucial Georgia Senate runoff elections, organizers like Albright, critical players in the efforts to flip the state from Republican to Democrat for the first time since 1992, are once again gearing up for another election.
      Black and minority organizers, who have for years been pushing to turn this state’s rapidly diversifying demographics into a more progressive politics, are being called on again to secure two Senate seats that would effectively hand Democrats control of the US legislature.
      Albright is optimistic that the communities he has worked to mobilize will turnout again and predicts, in fact, a rise in turnout.
      “You’ve got people now who have seen Georgia flip, when previously believed their vote might not matter. And what they’ve seen is that, you know what, if we come out in record numbers we can actually change the state. So some folks who may not have done it in November, who now want to be a part of it,” he said.
      As Trump continues to undermine the result in Georgia, and the election at-large, Albright believes the president’s baseless claims of widespread fraud, significantly directed at many communities of color around the country, will serve as extra motivation.
      “The fact that he [Trump] is out here trying to target us, to take our votes away, I think that’s going to stir up even more excitement,” he said. “If Trump keeps acting a fool, it’s going to backfire.”
      Black Voters Matter’s outreach efforts in central Georgia have been led by Fenika Miller, a lifelong resident of the city of Warner Robins, who has spent most of her career in grassroots organizing here. She admits feeling exhausted after the year-long election season. Thanksgiving was her first day off all year. It also marked the first time she had slept for eight hours.
      “This year feels like a three-year election cycle,” she said.

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      Miller was also selected as one of 16 Democrats, including former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, to cast an electoral college ballot for Biden on Monday, an honor she believes is a reflection of her community’s hard work.
      “The last time Georgia flipped I was a high school student. And the first time I’m going to cast a vote as an elector is going to be for a Democratic president. That’s a big deal,” she said.
      Miller is one of a number of Black women, including Abrams, that Democrats relied on in November who will be out again in January, empowered by the result last month.
      “Black women are leading our movements,” she said. “We are on the frontlines in a way that people don’t always necessarily see. We didn’t do this work to save our country, we did it to save ourselves, our families, our communities, our jobs, our childcare, just the basic things that our community needs.”
      Grassroots organizers across Georgia say the Covid-19 pandemic and protests over racial injustice helped spur people to motivate voters in ways they previously haven’t seen before.
      “Covid has highlighted to people how policy impacts their everyday lives and that elected officials make those policies. If you look at whether I get a stimulus relief for my business, some elected official makes that determination,” said Helen Butler, the executive director for the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, a group that works to get people registered to vote. “They knew it all along, but Covid has really brought it home because it is impacting so many people.”
      Nse Ufot, the CEO of the New Georgia Project, the voter registration group Stacey Abrams started in 2014, said the group had learned from the 2016 and 2018 elections in the state and become more vigilant about watching the entire registration and election process. That includes making sure that registered voters actually make it on to the rolls and aren’t wrongly removed once they’re there, she said (Georgia has faced scrutiny in recent years for its aggressive – and sometimes inaccurate – removal of voters). On election day in November, she said organizers showed up at polling stations that had been removed to give voters new information about where to go.
      “In the past that would have just meant that people were frustrated,” she said.
      Still, severe obstacles remain.
      Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger announced last month his office was investigating the New Georgia Project, focusing on an effort to get supporters to write postcards to people encouraging them to register and vote. Raffensperger suggested the group was soliciting votes from people who are ineligible, noting that he had received postcards from New Georgia Project addressed to his son, who died two years ago. Ufot strongly denies any wrongdoing, saying her group relies on state and other data to figure out where to send the postcards.
      Earlier this year, a nonprofit, the Voter Information Center, drew ire from election officials across the country for using faulty data to send misleading or incorrect voting information.
      “The fact that they’ve had three press conferences from the capitol stairs as opposed to reaching out to us tells us everything we need to know about their priorities and what this is designed to do,” Ufot said.
      “We use real lawyers to defend us and to defend our work. Every dollar that we have to spend to defend ourselves against the nuisance and partisan investigations is a dollar that we aren’t able to put into the field to register new voters and have high quality conversations about the power of their vote and the importance of this moment.”
      After years of investing in organizing, Ufot said it was rewarding to see the work pay off.
      “I’m definitely one of those people that’s like ‘you weren’t with us before November. Where have you been?’ Our position, our posture, is welcome to the fight, welcome to the work, grab a shovel,’” she said. More

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      'I won't vote next time': could Georgia Republicans' doubts cost them the runoffs?

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      As the sun dipped on a crisp autumnal evening in southern Georgia, Lauren Voyle stood in line for a front-row seat on the makeshift risers at the Valdosta regional airport. Donald Trump was due to arrive on the tarmac in a few hours’ time.It was the first time the president would hold a rally since losing the election in November and Voyle, who wore a blue Trump 2020 cap with the slogan “Keep Liberals Crying” on the rim, had driven four and a half hours from Cuming, a small city in the northern part of the state, to witness what she described as a historic moment.The president had ostensibly travelled to Georgia to canvass for the two Republican senate candidates, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, before a critical runoff election in January. But he spent the vast majority of an incoherent, 90-minute monologue spreading baseless disinformation about a rigged election, continuing to claim victory after losing by more than 7 million votes. Georgia election officials, meanwhile, have done three separate counts of the presidential vote, each time confirming Biden’s victory in the state.Some national Republicans fear that Trump’s continued denial of the results could have major consequences for the party in January, when this Senate election will determine control of the upper chamber. With over 70% of Republicans, according to recent polling, now believing that November’s presidential election was not “free and fair”, there are concerns that a collapse in trust in electoral processes could cost conservatives dearly at the ballot box.With the Senate election likely to be decided by a thin margin – both Democratic candidates, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, are slightly ahead, according to recent polls – even a small drop in turnout on either side could have significant consequences. In many ways, Voyle was the embodiment of their worst nightmare: a staunch Republican who would not turn up to vote again.“We really believe this election was crooked,” said the 57-year-old, who voted in the November election. “I won’t [vote] next time unless they give us a clean election with paper ballots, IDs and fingerprints. I’m not doing Dominion machines.”Although Trump urged supporters during his speech to turn out for Loeffler and Perdue, he also regurgitated many of the conspiracy theories about Dominion voting software and identification issues that Voyle described.Of the dozen people interviewed by the Guardian at Trump’s rally, all said they had mostly stopped watching Fox News, which faced the fury of Trump after accurately calling the election for Joe Biden, shifting their attention to Newsmax and the One America News Network, two fringe channels propagating baseless election fraud claims recently championed by the president.Even among some of those who did plan to vote, there remained a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the two Republican Senate candidates without Trump on the top of the ticket.“I’m not feeling it for either of them, but I’ll vote,” said Tammy Bailey, who had driven three hours south to attend in person. She added: “I feel like they’re both part of the deep state,” suggesting neither candidate had shown enough support for Trump’s efforts to subvert the election results.Loeffler and Perdue have walked a rhetorical tightrope during their second election season, on the one hand declining to articulate the full-throated, baseless claims of widespread fraud that Trump has propagated while on the otherdeclining to recognize Biden as the president-elect and offering their backing for desperate legal bids to overturn the result.On Sunday, during a televised debate, Loeffler, a multimillionaire businesswoman, declined three times to acknowledge the result, instead arguing that Trump had “every right to every legal recourse”.Democrats in the state are quietly confident that this confusing messaging will play into their hands. “While they’re scrambling to make clear sense to their base, our message is clear and unified,” said one source close to the Ossoff campaign.In his effort to undermine Georgia’s election results, Trump has also attacked two of the top Republicans in the state, Governor Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state. Despite Trump’s howling, both men have refused to acquiesce to his request and Raffensperger has loudly dismissed allegations the election was rigged against Trump. Raffensperger has said that Trump’s own criticism of voting by mail cost him the election in Georgia.Asked whether the president’s attacks were hurting Republicans’ chances of winning the runoff, Raffensperger told the Guardian it would be “helpful” to separate the general election and the coming vote.“The most helpful thing for the senators is obviously to have everyone focused on them getting re-elected in the runoff election,” Raffensperger said. “It’s very tough, I understand, to really bifurcate the issue of the presidential race from the senatorial runoffs, but the better that the state party and the candidates do that, the better it really is.”“I would never tell anyone not to turn out to vote. I don’t know why someone would do that. All the true blue, or I guess true red Republicans, we’ll be all out there, making sure that we vote for our senators,” he added.Raffensperger, who certified Georgia’s election results for Biden last month, has received threats against him and his family for doing so, and urged leaders from both sides “to condemn violence and threats of violence”.The attacks have also made it harder for local election officials to prepare for the runoff. Janine Eveler, the director of elections and registration in Cobb county, which encompasses the Atlanta suburbs, said she had been getting about 50 calls and emails a day from people concerned about the election.“It has taken away time that we could be working on the election to field all of their questions,” she said, adding that it was extremely difficult to convince the callers there had not been fraud. “They are unwilling to listen to any rebuttal of that. It’s fruitless. You can’t really explain anything to anybody because they’re not willing to listen.”Eveler said the attacks had taken a toll on election workers. She said her office had lost about 15 workers for the runoffs, which she attributed to a combination of concerns about Covid, burnout, and the attacks.“The public scrutiny over things, the accusations of wrongdoing that we’ve endured is very discouraging to people,” she said. “They don’t make a lot of money. And they’re working really hard. And to be accused of fraudulent activity, it’s hard for people. Their pictures are in the newspaper all the time, counting ballots.”The lack of staffing has also meant Cobb county has had to cut by half the number of early voting sites for the runoff, a move that drew strong objections from civil rights groups who said the few sites that were available were not adequately accessible for minority voters. Cobb county is one of the largest in Georgia, home to more than 537,000 registered voters, and flipped to Biden in November – the first time the county had chosen a Democratic candidate in 40 years.Eveler acknowledged the accessibility was a problem and said the county was moving one site and working on a plan to ramp up staffing and open two additional locations during the final week of early voting.Republicans in the Georgia state legislature have already signaled they intend to use the uncertainty Trump created around the election to implement new restrictions on voting by mail. State Republicans said this month they planned to move legislation that would require photo ID with a mail-in ballot, eliminate ballot drop boxes and require an excuse to vote by mail – a rule that exists in just a handful of states.“I can’t understand why all of a sudden now we have to have these barriers to vote by mail,” said Helen Butler, executive director of the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, a civil rights group that helps expand access to the polls. “When the other side used it – and I’m just gonna be honest, more white people used vote by mail than people of color, because they didn’t trust the process – now that we’ve got them trusting the process, now they want to go in and change the rules.”National Democrats, too, see Trump’s efforts to undermine the process as a long-term danger to democracy across the country, which could extend well beyond the election in Georgia.At an Ossoff campaign rally in the city of Lilburn, just outside Atlanta, Julián Castro, the former presidential candidate and US housing secretary, paused in the cold to reflect on the post-election circus.“The attacks that Donald Trump is launching against the basic foundations of our democracy are dangerous. They are the types of things that can weaken the common agreement we all have of participating in democracy, believing in it, supporting it and abiding by it,” he told the Guardian.“All because this man acts like a child and can’t put the needs of the country above his own selfish needs.” More

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      The Blue Flame of ‘Hotlanta’

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Blue Flame of ‘Hotlanta’Young entrepreneurs, artists and activists are building on a Southern capital’s long, rich history.Up and comers in Atlanta. Clockwise from top left: Ryan Wilson, an entrepreneur; Genesis Be, an activist; Maddison Brown, an actress; and Sanithna Phansavanhj, an artist.Credit…Clockwise from top left: Braylen Dion for The New York Times; Peyton Fulford for The New York Times; Braylen Dion for The New York Times; Peyton Fulford for The New York TimesDec. 12, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ETWhen Georgia went blue for Biden last month, some traced it to Stacey Abrams and her nonprofit Fair Fight, whose get-out-the-vote playbook electrified the state. Others cited more college-educated and older suburban voters.And though the election (and the upcoming Senate runoffs on Jan. 5) have focused new eyes on the state, it has long been a force of tradition and change. Atlanta, the capital, has a storied civil rights legacy, an influential hip-hop scene and booming film studios. It is the birthplace, after all, of Martin Luther King Jr., the home of Tyler Perry Studios and where such as artists as Childish Gambino, Migos and Gucci Mane made their mark.Nicknamed ”Hotlanta” or the ATL (after its bustling airport) by some, the city is also welcoming arrivals from New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere, drawn to not only to Atlanta’s history and culture, but also its affordable spaces, agreeable weather and fantastic food.Here are six Georgians, newcomers and natives, who exemplify modern Atlanta. They are entrepreneurs, actors, artist and activists.Interviews have been edited.Ryan WilsonRyan Wilson at the Gathering Spot, a members-only club for professionals he founded with TK Peterson.Credit…Braylen Dion for The New York TimesAge: 30Occupation: co-founder and chief executive of the Gathering Spot, a members-only club for young professionalsHometown: AtlantaNow Lives: in a single-family home in the artsy West Midtown section of the city, with his wife and daughter.Why did you move back to Atlanta?I’m from Atlanta, but attended undergrad and law school at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. I moved back to Atlanta in 2015 to open the Gathering Spot. I specifically chose to start the business here because I think Atlanta is the best city in the country right now for Black entrepreneurs to thrive.What was the impetus for the Gathering Spot?I started the Gathering Spot in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s murder with the belief that Black people should have a place to be more than tolerated, but celebrated. I also missed the access to community and thought leadership that I experienced during my university years and wondered why I couldn’t find a place where that continued to happen. The club has hosted everyone from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to Drake. My partner TK Petersen and I are in the middle of opening a Gathering Spot in D.C.What makes Atlanta unique?In Atlanta, our biggest export is our culture. In this city, we know each other across traditional lines of difference and have successfully brought thriving start-up, big business, college and university, and creative communities together. Atlanta is also a city that is distinctly Black. This is one of the few cities where topics like diversity, representation and political power for Black people aren’t aspirational talking points, but our historic and present reality.What did the 2020 elections reveal about Georgia?Georgia is a true battleground state, and more diverse and more progressive than what we get credit for. This election cycle is also showing that Georgia, like our country, is deeply divided. I’m optimistic though that what is happening in Georgia will inspire other communities to see that they, too, can mobilize new voters, shift their politics and successfully navigate tough conversations about their collective future.Maricela VegaMaricela Vega is a chef at 8ARM, a community-focused cafe and wine bar.Credit…Braylen Dion for The New York TimesAge: 31Occupation: activist, founder of Chicomecoatl, a seed-to-plate catering company; chef at 8ARM, a community-driven restaurantHometown: Fullerton, Calif.Now lives: In a two-bedroom apartment in the Grove Park neighborhood of Atlanta with her partnerWhy did you move to Atlanta?My family moved us to northwest Georgia from Fullerton, Calif., in the mid-90s (they are originally from Mexico) and I moved to Atlanta in 2008. I was in and out of state colleges as a pre-law student until I finally dropped out in 2010 and landed my first cooking experience as an intern at the former Tierra by the Atlanta Botanical Garden in Ansley Park. I’ve been cooking in this city ever since.Your cooking crosses over into activism. How did that start?In 2014 I was a chef for a University of Georgia summer program that traveled across the country. We were crossing through California’s central valley, where many of the farm workers are from Mexico. This is where we harvest so much of the country’s food and yet, for the locals, it is a food desert. This was a big moment for me. I realized as a chef you don’t see all the hands that are behind your food orders. You don’t know their cost of living or what wage they receive. After educating myself more, I started to take on roles having to do with food justice.What did the 2020 elections reveal about Georgia?The elections are demonstrating that there have been many groups of people that have been ready to be a part of the conversations that shape institutional change. They are also indicating that the youth is finally able to vote and that they will be heard.Tell us something surprising about Atlanta.There are many urban farms here that are also platforms for racial justice and activism, like Grow Where You Are, an organization that’s been actively working in our communities for over a decade, and emphasizes the importance of land stewardship and food sovereignty as a human right.Maddison BrownMaddison Brown, an actress, at the Ponce City Market.Credit…Braylen Dion for The New York TimesAge: 23Occupation: actress (currently stars on CW’s “Dynasty”)Hometown: Sydney, AustraliaNow Lives: The upscale district of Buckhead in northern Atlanta.Why did you move to Atlanta?I moved here in 2018 when I was booked for the second season of “Dynasty.” I thought initially I would be in the city for three and a half months but now, two and a half years later, I am still here, shooting the fourth season.How does it compare to other cities?I’ve lived In New York City and Sydney. In 2015 I moved to L.A. and enjoyed the outdoor lifestyle. It reminded me of Sydney, but because L.A. is the center of Hollywood and celebrity, there is an oversaturation of social media that gives it an underlying sense of superficiality. It feels like everyone is an influencer. Atlanta is a bit of an outlier. I really appreciate that Atlanta has a hustle, but on the flip side there is a slower pace and a day-to-day reality that feels more wholesome and authentic.What surprised you about Georgia?I thought the South was a place where everyone had a thick drawl and where I could find a lot of barbecue and Spanish moss dripping from the trees. I thought that it would be somewhat conservative and feel 50 years behind other international cities. But Atlanta feels very much in the center of everything and extremely progressive. After all, it’s the birthplace of Martin Luther King. I’m reminded of that every day I drive by his childhood home on the way to work.What do you think the 2020 elections will mean for the future of Georgia?People outside the state are now seeing its potential. I think we’ll be seeing more film production here, more people following in Tyler Perry’s footsteps, more people moving here. Those of us who have been living here have known this, but the election is showing the results of this shift. It’s really exciting to be here at this moment.Genesis BeGenesis Be, an art activist who is trying to change the Mississippi state flag.Credit…Peyton Fulford for The New York TimesAge: 33Occupation: art activistHometown: Biloxi, Miss.Now lives: In a one-bedroom apartment in Tucker, Ga., about 15 miles northeast of Atlanta.Describe your work.I am best known for my work spearheading the movement to change the Mississippi State flag.I recently returned from a five-month national tour with Vote Common Good, of which I am the poet laureate. In Atlanta, my next project, Bars & Blue Cups, will explore the intersection between hip-hop and health. As a blueprint, I’ll be using my own journey as an independent rap activist — my failures, my triumphs and my journey of self-discovery through health literacy, empowerment, mindfulness and self-actualization.Why did you move to Atlanta?In 2017 while living in Brooklyn, my friend and fellow artist, Chris Wilson, introduced me to an organization called Breakout. After meeting co-founder, Michael Farber, they flew me out to host an event in Atlanta and I fell in love with the city. Within a couple months, I relocated from Brooklyn to Atlanta to see how my talents can be of service here.How does Atlanta differ from other cities?I’m still new to the city, but so far I have seen flourishing Black businesses, collaboration within our community, sharing of resources and queer visibility on a level that I’ve not seen in other cities. Being from Mississippi, I’m used to the slower pace of the south, the complex history of institutional suppression and the erasure of anything that isn’t straight, white, male or wealthy. Atlanta has some of those same components, like every American city, but it’s not denied or hidden.What did the 2020 elections teach us?The elections proved what many of us have known and have been screaming about for years: that the survival of our nation is dependent on the intellect, power, magic and leadership of people of color and especially Black women. We’ve seen Georgia leaders like Wanda Mosley, LaTosha Brown, Stacey Abrams, Tamieka Atkins, come to the forefront of media attention fairly recently. Black women have always led movements from the back, but now the overdue acknowledgment, credit and visibility has caught up.How are recent transplants like yourself changing Atlanta?Their presence and investments could be destroying the very spirit that attracted them to the city in the first place. I’ve been meeting a lot of people moving here from N.Y.C. or the West Coast excited about buying property and starting businesses here in Atlanta. I understand the excitement. However, during my time in Brooklyn I’ve seen the devastation caused by outsider investment and corporate expansion, how it displaces family and sucks the soul out of entire communities. I’d just say be mindful of your presence, learn about the city’s people and history, and respect those who are already doing great work here.Jason BurkeyJason Burkey, an actor, at the Trilith, a mixed-used development where he lives.Credit…Peyton Fulford for The New York TimesAge: 35Occupation: actor (in the Lifetime Christmas movie “My Sweet Holiday”)Hometown: ChicagoNow lives: A single-family house in Trilith, a mixed-used development with homes, shops, parks and a film studioWhy did you move to Atlanta?I was living in Nashville and consistently driving to Atlanta for auditions. Having done one too many country music videos, I decided it was time for a change, and I knew I needed to start establishing myself in Atlanta. That was 2012, before there was a huge influx of actors moving from L.A. and New York.How does Atlanta compare to other cities?I grew up outside of Chicago and have lived in Los Angeles and Nashville. But I have to say, Atlanta is definitely my home. I think it’s the perfect size when it comes to cities: it’s big without being overwhelming, yet there are pockets that make it feel small, each with incredibly diverse backdrops and experiences.What is it like to work as an actor here?What really makes Atlanta unique is that there is a strong and encouraging support system; in other cities there was always an underlying feeling of competition and desperation that I just couldn’t thrive in.How does Atlanta defy stereotypes of the South?Atlanta is a melting pot. The people here are unapologetically unique in their appearances, in their beliefs and the way they live their lives. They are bold and kind. They are creative risk takers. I’ve found Atlanta to be open and welcoming to anyone and everyone. It’s OK to be both different and friendly here. That’s not true of most cities.Sanithna PhansavanhSanithna Phansavanh, in front of his mural in the Cabbagetown section of Atlanta.Credit…Peyton Fulford for The New York TimesAge: 40Occupation: artistHometown: Kansas City, Mo.Now lives: In a two-bedroom house in Decatur, Ga.How long have you been in Atlanta?My parents moved to Atlanta when I was 3, so I’m as native as you can get without being born here.Why have you stayed?As an artist you always think about moving to New York or Los Angeles because they are the country’s important centers of art and culture. But I personally like that Atlanta has had to prove itself over the last 15 years or so. I love being the underdog. Without being cutthroat, artists in Atlanta have been able to build a community the way we want it to be. I’d rather be part of something that is in the middle of shaping itself rather than force myself into an existing ecosystem.Tell me about the city’s art scene.There is a big D.I.Y. art movement in the city that includes small galleries and nonprofit art projects like The Bakery, Dashboard, Notch 8 and ABV, an agency and art gallery founded by artist Greg Mike. When I am out painting walls for OuterSpace, the streets are lined with people. I just finished a mural for Living Walls, a nonprofit started by Monica Campana to celebrate art in Atlanta that has over time turned into a juggernaut.How has race evolved for you here?Historically for me, the only colors that have mattered in the South, and especially in Atlanta, are Black and white. As a person that is neither shade, I had to blend into both those communities. But now there’s a lot more acceptance of diversity. Southern hospitality is a legit thing: if you are a decent person you are typically welcomed with open arms, at least in Atlanta.Were you politically engaged in the 2020 elections?I tried to encourage people to register to vote by giving free portraits of John Lewis to those who did. Through that process, I met so many passionate people engaged in civic activity. It was so heartening for me to witness that firsthand. I think there is a common idea out there that one vote doesn’t matter, but we saw just how some counties were won by just a few hundred votes.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      A Guide to Georgia’s Senate Runoffs

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyThe DailySubscribe:Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsA Guide to Georgia’s Senate RunoffsGeorgia flipped blue for Joe Biden. Now two costly battles there will decide control of the Senate.Hosted by Michael Barbaro; produced by Jessica Cheung and Austin Mitchell; and edited by Paige Cowett and Lisa Tobin.More episodes ofThe DailyDecember 11, 2020  •  More

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      States targeted in Texas election fraud lawsuit condemn 'cacophony of bogus claims'

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      Attorneys general from both parties reject baseless allegations in case filed with US supreme courtGeorgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin on Thursday urged the US supreme court to reject a lawsuit filed by Texas and backed by Donald Trump seeking to undo Joe Biden’s victory, saying the case has no factual or legal grounds and makes “bogus” claims.“What Texas is doing in this proceeding is to ask this court to reconsider a mass of baseless claims about problems with the election that have already been considered, and rejected, by this court and other courts,” Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s Democratic attorney general, wrote in a filing to the nine justices. Continue reading… More

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      Letter-writers look to get out the vote in Georgia – with a personal touch

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      Each election season as campaigns ramp up get-out-the-vote efforts, socially awkward Americans face a dilemma: is it possible to help salvage democracy without having to cold-call anyone?
      The letter-writing organization Vote Forward offers a solution. This year, the non-profit says, it inspired more than 182,000 people to send more than 17m personalized letters encouraging others to exercise their rights.
      “We’re thrilled with how it went,” said Scott Forman, Vote Forward’s founder. “Early this year we set what felt at the time like an insanely ambitious goal of writing 10m letters, which is an order of magnitude more than we had done in previous years,” he said. “It was pretty wild to see how it got a little bit viral.”
      Forman said avoiding tricky conversations was part of the reason he started the program: “I’m not really that enthusiastic in wanting to knock on doors or make phone calls.” During a global pandemic, face-to-face interactions become even less feasible, making the operation – launched in 2017 – feel somewhat prescient.

      Now the organization, with just six staff members, has a new task: getting out the vote, especially among underrepresented groups, for Georgia’s crucial Senate runoff elections, which will determine the balance of power in the chamber – and thus shape Joe Biden’s presidency.
      The strategy has three parts: boosting voter registration, encouraging people to request ballots, and nudging unlikely voters toward the polls.
      Vote Forward’s letter-writing scheme asks volunteers to add a handwritten message beginning with the words “I vote because” on letters that are otherwise prewritten with voting information; volunteers then send the letters to potential voters identified by the organization. So what is the best way to convince Georgians to make their voices heard?
      The temptation might be to write something like: “I vote because, though Democrats may not be perfect, many of them still appear to have remnants of a soul. Vote blue!”
      But Forman urges a more restrained approach, noting that research has shown non-partisan messages are more effective at increasing turnout than partisan efforts. Though some of Vote Forward’s campaigns target Democratic-leaning voters, these letters are “not a political pitch. It’s about lowercase-D democratic values,” Forman said. “And I personally think that is something we need to try to unify around.”
      Indeed, he points out, at a time when many Americans are stuck in political feedback loops and unwilling to listen to the other side, a “warm and neighborly” note can be just the thing to cut through. “I do feel like some of the conspiracy-minded and anti-factual beliefs that people have come from being in bubbles – information bubbles and social bubbles,” Forman said. “Getting this factual and personal piece of mail from a fellow citizen,” he added, might help “to puncture some of those bubbles”.
      Forman’s own letters to Georgians, he said, would focus on exercising one’s voice. “I’ve gotten more and more attracted to the idea that voting is about agency,” he said. “So I would write something like: ‘I vote because it’s important to me that my voice be heard by our leaders, and they take my interests into account when they make decisions for all of us.’”

      Bria East, a Philadelphia educator who received a Vote Forward letter, supports Forman’s argument: “It was such an unbiased and positive reminder,” East wrote in a letter the organization shared. “This year I am registered to vote but haven’t sent my ballot in. This letter was the motivation I needed to do so.”
      Vote Forward also advises against referring specifically to the national stakes of Georgia’s Senate races. “Georgia voters are making a choice about who will represent Georgia, and our messages should respect that,” the group says. Letters should contain positive, inclusive messages and avoid getting into specifics about the issues.
      Democrats have a difficult battle ahead as the Rev Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff seek to replace the Republican senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in a traditionally red state. But Joe Biden turned Georgia blue in the presidential race, and Forman has hope for the Senate: “Runoff elections are problematic in that they tend to depress turnout overall,” he noted. But with such high stakes and a new Democratic coalition having formed in the state behind Biden, “my hope is that a lot of people will vote. And if they do, I think that Rev Warnock and Mr Ossoff have a decent chance.” More