Nsé Ufot heads the “New Georgia Project”, an American association promoting registration on the electoral rolls, co-created by Stacey Abrams in 2014. The “New GA” mobilizes minority voters, regularly discouraged from going to vote, for them. January 5, 2021 partial senatorial elections in Georgia, with early voting starting on December 14.
Just over two million people have already voted. Are you satisfied with the participation rate?
I am delighted with this participation! We were nervous after the presidential election in November, and wondered if voters in Georgia were able to return to the polls. Statistics show that people turn out less for the second rounds (“runoffs”) of elections, or that white voters are more numerous. But what we’ve seen belies that: over 90% of voters who voted early in November have already voted for the Senate. And this will continue until the end of the early voting on December 30, then at the polls on January 5.
How has the Georgia electorate evolved in recent years?
Demographics have changed a lot since 2000, with many arrivals to the state, from New York or California – more liberal regions. Georgia has a long history of “voter suppression”, with votes blocked, complicated by intimidation, until recently. It is one of our battle horses: that the voters come to vote and that their votes are counted.
We revealed how the votes of black voters were the first to be affected. Since June, over 5,000 volunteers have helped us monitor all stages of the election: from voter registration, including new voters to ensure they register, to the counting of the ballot boxes. There was only 13,000 votes of difference between President-elect Joe Biden and President Donald Trump. Would they have been well counted if these activists had not been there?
Since the creation of your association in 2014, how many new voters have you encouraged to register on the electoral roll?
In Georgia, in six years, we have already helped 500,000 voters register. And we estimate that 800,000 people of color are still unregistered. We are particularly targeting young Georgians, those who have just turned 18, rural people and people from minorities.
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