The state of Georgia is again at the center of American politics.
We have to remember that in 2020, when Joe Biden won the state, it was a kind of a political
earthquake.
Democrats have taken a slim majority in the Senate after the Georgia runoff election.
The number of people turning out to vote, early voting this election cycle,
last election cycle, the cycle before that is huge.
The massive turnout of Democrats in Atlanta in 2020.
The wins for both of these Senate seats, the fact that President Biden was placed in the White
House as a result of the election, all of these things caused GOP members in our state House
to want to put additional limitations on people's access to the ballots.
In the city of Atlanta.
Candidates are campaigning on issues like reproductive freedoms, voting rights, allegations
of rampant crime and inflation.
We have to watch how we spend at the federal government level.
Early voting was off to a record start in 2022, according to the Georgia secretary of state.
This record turnout is coming as state officials have limited access to ballot boxes in key places
like metro Atlanta.
Here's how the city of Atlanta became a hotspot in the 2022 elections and what that means for the
country's future.
Atlanta, the capital city of Georgia, in heart of the eighth largest metro area in the United States
with over 6 million residents in metro Atlanta is still growing quickly.
You have a relocation of people from states that have higher voter
participation or at least a more engaged electorate that are moving inside of the state of
Georgia.
You know, Atlanta, especially after COVID, is getting a ton of people from the northeast, from
from the D.C. area, from from California to out west.
Christian Zimm is the Republican candidate challenging Rep Nikki Williams for
Georgia's fifth Congressional District, which contains much of Atlanta.
I moved here ten years ago and I moved here from Florida.
People vote with their feet.
They are moving down here in droves.
And it's because of the tax policies, because of the incentives that we have created for industry
to come here.
As Atlanta has grown, so is the profile of the national Democrats who come from the area.
The Democrats success in the key state of Georgia is really dependent on their success in mobilizing
voters here in the city of Atlanta and in the broader metro Atlanta area.
So any issues related to voting rights or access to the ballot are key not only for the nation and
for the state, but especially for the voters here in Georgia.
And in a place like Atlanta, the political power of Atlantans and the broader population of the
metro region is now being expressed in terms of statewide elections.
The incumbent governor, Brian Kemp, faces a second challenge from Stacey Abrams, a progressive
organizer.
Kemp is very pro-business.
He definitely thought that the economy of Georgia was of critical importance and therefore open the
state early. We lost lots of people.
This is something that would change under the Abrams governorship.
Georgia is poised to implement a more strict abortion ban, and Brian Kemp has supported such
bans in the past.
So we'll see if that issue of abortion resonates with Georgia voters.
While the parties remain split on substantive issues, personalities backed by former President
Trump have swallowed up attention on the campaign trail.
Herschel Walker is beloved in Georgia.
I think that GOP voters believe that if they elect Herschel Walker that he will vote
the way that the GOP wants them to.
Walker is challenging Raphael Warnock, the incumbent Democratic senator elected in 2020 race.
Warnock is also the head pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, which was once led by the civil
rights icon Martin Luther King.
This race arguably has the greatest potential impact on national law making.
A mix of polling data aggregated by 538 suggests it's a toss up.
State officials say Atlanta voters are again turning out in heavy numbers this.
Year, despite relatively high turnout in 2020 and expected high turnout in 2022.
It's likely that large shares of voters, in particular voters of color, are going to stay
home, are not going to vote in 2021.
Georgia's governor signed a bill that reimagined how voting works in the state.
Sb 202 is a voting law that is designed to have an impact on people's ability to reach the
polls. New rules have been put on the state oversight of elections.
The state election board has a lot more power to regulate elections at the county level.
One example can be found in ballot box access.
Before 2020, there were no ballot drop boxes in the state of Georgia and during the pandemic as an
emergency provision, the state Board of Elections allowed counties to make decisions about how many
ballot drop boxes they would have.
This was in anticipation of a big surge in mail in voting.
Now, in SB 202, we don't have any more 24 hour drop boxes here in the state and counties like
Fulton County and DeKalb County that had dozens of ballot drop boxes now reduced to less than
half, in some cases less than a third of the number of drop boxes they had in November 2020.
Fulton County is at the heart of the sprawling metro Atlanta region.
It has seven ballot box locations serving a population of over 1 million people.
By comparison, in 2020, Fulton County had more than 30 ballot box points, according to a count
from WABE.
It also limits access to those drop boxes so they can only be inside accessible at polling places
during polling hours.
Challenges to drop box access have also mounted in Wisconsin, Florida, Indiana and Iowa at the same
time. Georgia's voting bill addressed other issues.
So the Georgia General Assembly has more of a forceful role in the employment of
elections, which has allowed the General Assembly to allow for more so called poll
watchers. You can actually go while someone is voting and you can challenge their ability to
vote. You don't necessarily have any proof.
You can just create a challenge.
Democrats have sounded the alarm over bills like SB 202.
We must pass federal voting rights legislation now to ensure democracy for all Americans.
We cannot wait in Washington.
Naima Williams chairs the Voting Rights Caucus.
Their key bill stalled out in President Biden's first term.
Like the recent challenge to Georgia's vicious.
Anti voting.
Law.
Yet SB two too, has benefits.
You can vote in the state of Georgia anywhere in your county during early voting, and this is very
beneficial for people who work.
This is beneficial for people who who are parents.
Researchers say that a raft of election skeptics are running for roles that control the voting
process.
We had a lot of problems with the 2020 election.
We codified a lot of those issues into law with SB 202.
We have a long ways to go.
I've been talking with a lot of my friends who are running for the state legislature who are
actually going to take that bill a step further and protect voting access moving forward for the
next couple of years. I think that's a good thing.
Some policy experts believe the new laws could limit access to the polls in subtle ways.
For example, supporting voters as they wait to cast their ballots.
In Georgia, we've had long lines which hopefully we won't see during this midterm period.
But it was a situation where people might need snacks or water.
A spin was placed on that as if that was purely democratic and that there was unfair persuasion
happening in the lines.
Therefore, that has been banned.
These concerns won't be observable until Election Day, when lines can stretch to their longest, but
state officials expect a particularly high turnout.
The first days of early voting for this midterm have surpassed presidential election levels,
according to Georgia's secretary of state.
In this midterm cycle, four major bills will come out of Washington.
Despite spending trillions on these policy priorities.
The government shrank its budget deficit in 2022.
I think the Democrats have gotten more done than they have sort of gotten credit for.
But those things have been hard fought, involved a lot of compromise.
Having an evenly split or even one seat majority doesn't necessarily help with systemic and
structural changes within the Senate itself in order to pass bills.
What you can do, though, is confirm seats in the president's cabinet or
federal judges or even Supreme Court justices, which obviously, as we can tell, is also
crucially important for individuals who have a concern about women's bodily autonomy or
voting or incarceration or policing powers.
All of these types of of concerns, it's really important for us to realize that
who we vote for on a local level reaches to the state level, reaches to the federal level.
Nationwide, this election is generating a record breaking turnout.
Polls have shown close races across the board.
This election is more balanced than we expected it to be post redistricting.
This is a unique moment in terms of the hyper polarization where, like Congress can't even pass
legislation in a lot of instances because there's just no give whatsoever.
The GOP, too, seems to have less reverence for the traditional limits of our
constitutional democracy, including the January six insurrection.
You know, I wonder if I will be teaching American government forever or if I might need to become a
historian, because that sort of traditional idea about how American government is supposed to work
might not continue in the short term.
If we talk about redistricting and the overall effect, what it's really done is reduce the number
of seats where both parties are contesting or vying for power.
Instead, we have more safe Republican and more safe Democratic seats.
Voters say, what's the point?
Why should they be voting if elections are not competitive?
Now, it's important to note that voters vote for a number of different reasons, including wanting
to express their political voice.
And we've seen a number of states, including here in Georgia, where statewide elections have become
very prominent and very competitive.
Experts say the race could fall to voters views on headline national issues, including abortion and
inflation.
According to all the polls that have been taken since really 2020 and 2021 is the economy Once
again, it's a story about the economy.
And if those high prices continue, if inflation continues to rise, it'll be difficult for
Democrats to send a message to voters that they are going to be able to deal with these basic
pocketbook issues and might be a boon for Republicans seeking to say that their economic
agenda would solve these problems.