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Today’s Links:
Article:  Georgia Recorder
Voter Guides for May 24th Primaries:   Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama

You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping your government by and for the people.

Tuesday, May 24, three states conduct state primaries, including Alabama, Arkansas and Georgia.

In Georgia, voters defied the new draconian voting rules on absentee ballots, and restricting the number of ballot drop boxes and assistance from third party voting rights organizations, and turned out in record numbers for early voting. The three-week period of early voting ended Friday.

The Georgia Recorder reports vote totals of more than 655,000 ballots cast in person, and another 54,000 absentee ballots. This is a 180% increase over the 2018 primary election for the same time period, and a 149% increase over the 2020 primary election.

In some precincts, there were even lines of an hour or more for early voting, a highly unusual occurrence.

More Republicans turned out for early voting, over 406,000, driven by the Kemp – Purdue race for Governor, and for Democrats, a 299,000 early voting count for competitive races for secretary of state, attorney general and lieutenant governor.

Several states have changed voter registration laws. If you haven’t already, double check your voter registration with your local election officials, and get ready for the primary in your state.

We have state primary voter guides for Georgia, Arkansas and Alabama at our website, AmericanDemocracyMinute.org/

Granny D said, “Democracy is not something we have, it’s something we DO.”

For the American Democracy Minute, I’m Brian Beihl.