Down Ballot: In presidential election years local elections continue to be ignored

The Biden-Harris Administration recently kicked off a multi-city tour for its Black Voters for Biden-Harris voter outreach program. Standing in a parking lot outside of Twain’s Brewpub & Billiards in Decatur on a cool Saturday afternoon in early June, Georgia Congresswoman Nikema Williams, Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms took to a podium to speak to just under two dozen supporters about voting in November. 

“This campaign isn’t taking a single Georgian for granted,” said Williams of the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to reach Black voters, a crucial demographic to the campaign’s 2020 victory over then President Donald J. Trump. Williams called the Black Democratic block in Georgia, “the backbone of the Biden-Harris Administration.” 

Voting down ballot doesn’t always get the same level of political support that a presidential campaign does. So it is not a surprise that midterm elections do not draw the voter turnout and overall general interest that a presidential election does. That said, the numbers in three of metro Atlanta’s most populated counties by Black people, Clayton, DeKalb, and Fulton counties, were extremely low during last month’s midterm primary elections. The state of Georgia saw more than 514,000 ballots cast during those same midterm elections in May and less than 100,000 of those votes were cast in three of the seven largest counties in the state, according to data provided by the Georgia Secretary of State Office.