More than two dozen DeKalb County pastors have come together to promote voting in this November’s election.
Pastor Lee May of Transforming Faith Church is heading up the group, DeKalb Votes Together. He says that through mid-October, the group will be focusing on getting church members to vote by mail.
“And so every time that we stand up as pastors, communicating our goal for people to vote by mail, we want to project a sense of confidence that you can be assured that your vote has been cast and counted on election day,” May says.
He notes that churches will produce videos and use social media, text, email and phone calls to encourage members to vote.
May says the group’s focus will shift to promoting early voting on Oct. 21 and then Election Day voting on Nov. 3.
“We’re not promoting any party or any candidate,” says May. “But we gotta be very clear here: There has been talk, misinformation and misstatements about vote by mail. Vote by mail has long been an adequate way to cast your vote.”
Roughly half of Georgia voters who cast ballots in the June primaries voted by mail, setting a new record for the state. Georgia has had no-excuse absentee voting since 2005. DeKalb County’s board of elections has approved plans to send absentee ballot applications to the more than 500,000 registered voters in the county.
May says they’re looking to double the number of churches involved in the outreach effort, and they want to get 25,000 registered voters to commit to voting by mail through the group’s website.
May was surrounded at Wednesday’s news conference by several fellow pastors.
“We have learned that when we do not vote, it affects us all,” says Eleshia Cash, co-pastor at Global Leadership Christian Center in DeKalb County. “And as churches, we want to empower and encourage you to vote be engaged and stay woke and go vote.”
