About Let's Vote DeKalb

Founded in 2020

DeKalb County Georgia is one of the three largest counties in the State of Georgia with 756,558 total residents. As of October 14, 2018 there were 536,935 registered voters in DeKalb County, Georgia, with 494,097 active voters. Despite the number of registered voters approximately 14% of DeKalb residents actively vote in each election and ultimately choose our elected officials.

Let's Vote DeKalb

We Create Our Narrative

Did you know only about 34% of Americans can name the three branches of the government: executive, legislative and judicial. Despite the publicity and entertaining events during voting primaries, most people give little notice to political candidates’ and their policy proposals, voting record or agenda.

Democracies rest on the ability of the general public to understand legislation, vote intelligently and hold their elected officials accountable. What happens when a large segment of voters knows very little about today’s policy debates or even the basic workings of American government? It's easy, you have ineffective government and citizens suffer. Let's Vote DeKalb is here to ensure every DeKalb citizen votes.

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The Open Letter

LAWYERS DEFENDING AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

We live at a time when America’s fundamental values are under attack. As American lawyers, we’re deeply concerned about protecting the democratic institutions and principles that have enabled America to be the world’s preeminent beacon of freedom and opportunity.

As lawyers, we have the responsibility to defend the underlying constitutional values and norms of political behavior on which our democracy depends. These core values and principles include: the rule of law; institutional checks and balances; separation of powers; press freedom; truthfulness to the public; and the integrity of our system of justice.

New Voting Machine Demonstration

“A Man Without A Vote Is A Man Without Protection.”

( Lyndon B. Johnson)

Pertinent Voting Info 01.

Georgia purge removes nearly 309,000 voter registrations.

Georgia election officials purged nearly 309,000 voter registrations from the state’s voting rolls this week, according to a list of cancelled registrations released by the secretary of state’s office on Wednesday.

A federal judge is set to hear arguments Thursday about whether some of those registrations should be reinstated. The hearing comes after Fair Fight Action, a voting rights advocacy group founded by Democrat Stacey Abrams, filed an emergency motion earlier this week asking the court to stop part of the purge.

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones allowed the purge to move forward Monday after a lawyer for the state said the voter maintenance program was already running and that any voters deemed to have been wrongly removed could have their registrations reinstated within 24 to 48 hours.

Nearly 5,000 voters were able to save their registrations from being canceled in recent months by voting in November, responding to mailed notices or having some other type of contact with election officials, according to the secretary of state’s office.

WATCH: PBS NewsHour POLITICO Democratic Debate

Fair Fight is challenging the removal of people who ended up on the purge list for inactivity, or “solely because they have not voted or had any other statutorily-defined ‘contact’ with election officials in the past seven years and have not responded to two notices seeking confirmation of their current address.” The final list of purged registrations shows that nearly 118,000 people were removed for this type of inactivity.

Fair Fight says a new law allows voters nine years of inactivity before being removed — compared to seven years under the old law. But the lawyer for the state countered that the people in question were placed on the inactive list before the new law took effect.

Voter purges in Georgia became a hot-button issue during last year’s race for governor between Abrams and Republican Brian Kemp, who won the race. Kemp served as secretary of state before being elected governor and oversaw aggressive voter purges during his tenure. Over 1.4 million voter registrations were canceled in Georgia between 2012 and 2018.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in October released a list of over 313,000 voters whose registrations were at risk of being canceled, about 4% of the state’s total registered voters. Notices were mailed in November giving those voters 30 days to respond in order to keep their registration valid.

“The extra steps we took allowed us to reach people and help them preserve their registration. I consider that a success,” Raffensperger said in a statement.

Raffensperger’s office has defended the list maintenance, saying it makes the administration of elections smoother and helps guard against voter fraud.