WASHINGTON — The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee unveiled a new video featuring Georgia Democratic Party Chair Senator Nikema Williams discussing the importance of protecting the right to vote during this public health crisis. Senator Williams — who is recovering from a coronavirus infection — made headlines in 2018 when she was arrested at the state capitol during a voting rights protest.
“I wanted them to know that their voice deserves to be heard,” explains Senator Williams in the video. “Their voice deserved to be heard at the ballot box, and it definitely deserved to be heard in the safe space of our state capitol. And I stood with them.”
For Senator Williams, the coronavirus pandemic and her own brush with the illness has only strengthened her resolve to protect Georgians’ access to the ballot box. Georgia House Speaker David Ralston opposes efforts to expand vote-by-mail in the state, arguing that doing so would “be extremely devastating to Republicans and conservatives in Georgia.”
“What we do around our election processes, whether we’re expanding vote-by-mail so that people can vote with certainty and with ease in this pandemic without putting their health at risk, is all controlled on the state level,” said Senator Williams.
And while Democrats across the country are leading on addressing the crisis, Republicans have fallen far short, refusing to ease voting and attempting to undermine the recommendations of public health officials when it comes to combatting the pandemic. The difference between the two parties in combating the crisis could not be starker.
“Let’s expand Democratic majorities across the country because we are the people who are going to bring us out of this and see us to a brighter future,” concluded Senator Williams.
Georgia is one of the DLCC’s top targets in its $50 million Flip Everything campaign to win power for Democrats at the state level this year. Since Trump’s election, the DLCC and state Democrats have flipped over 430 seats and ten chambers from red to blue.
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