Sunday voting begins in Georgia

Fulton County voters will cast their ballots this Sunday to become the first from among at least nine Georgia counties that have joined this year in a historic effort to hold early voting this fall on what’s traditionally an off day at the ballot box.

Whether it’s a one-shot deal or embraced for future elections remains to be seen. A political fury erupted last month when counties started adding Sundays to their early voting schedules, but it has now died down. It’s been replaced by the busywork of election officials preparing the polls, and of communities — particularly those of faith — deciding how to handle the opportunity.

“We’re excited it’s being done because it gives us a new pool of voters,” said Leo Smith, the minority engagement director for the Georgia Republican Party. “These are the kinds of things that are an opportunity for us.”

As of late last week, in addition to Fulton, the counties now planning to open their polls on at least one Sunday this fall are Athens-Clarke, Chatham, Clayton, DeKalb, Dougherty, Floyd, Lowndes and Richmond. Most have scheduled a one-day Sunday voting event on Oct. 26. Fulton is the only county that will also hold voting this Sunday.

"We are ready," Fulton Elections Director Richard Barron said of that effort, which followed a move by Democrats in DeKalb last month to start the ball rolling. It drew national attention when state Sen. Fran Millar, R-Dunwoody, blasted what he viewed as a partisan get-out-the vote effort. Millar's comments suggested that Sunday voting is a way to get black church members voting in larger numbers.

To be sure, racial minorities in Georgia have traditionally voted Democratic. But voters’ views of Sunday voting are as diverse as Georgia’s growing population.

“It makes no sense,” said 38-year-old Conyers resident Ray Perry, a longtime Democrat whose county has not hopped on the Sunday voting train. “I don’t see what all these different rules are for. It’s unnecessary.”

But Sunday voting, while new to Georgia, is not new nationally.

Alaska, Illinois and Maryland each explicitly allows for Sunday voting as part of its early-voting schedule. Ohio, which has been entangled in a court case involving Sunday early voting, plans to open its polls on the last Sunday before Election Day.

California, Florida and Nevada allow local officials to decide whether to open on Sundays. Barron, who used to be an elections administrator in Texas, said that state, too, leaves it up to county officials.

Georgia law only sets a 21-day early-voting period and mandates that it include at least one Saturday. It just wasn’t until this year that local officials tried anything different.

Wendy Underhill, with the National Conference of State Legislatures, said the mood nationally among states that allow early voting involved concerns about uniformity — so voters get the same opportunities no matter which part of a state they may live in.

A group of black clergy in Fulton County began meeting more than a month ago to hash out details of their congregations’ Sunday voting efforts.

With the county offering two rounds of Sundays, a number of churches have banded together to offer transportation to members as part of a “Souls to the Polls” campaign. Other congregations plan to walk together to the polls, and several are reminding members of the Sunday voting options.

Turner Chapel A.M.E. in southwest Atlanta has sent out pledge cards to its members, emblazoned with the words “I’m a faithful voter.” Nearby Hoosier United Methodist Church is not transporting members, said Pastor Gary Dean, but it is encouraging members to vote on Sunday.

A large Sunday turnout at the polls “sends the message that this is another voting option that is needed and should be permanent,” Dean said.

“I’m definitely going to do it,” said parishioner Michael Carroll, who was attending Wednesday afternoon Bible study with his mother, Mary, at Providence Missionary Baptist Church. “It’s a good way to avoid all the traffic on Election Day.”

For Carroll’s mother, Sunday voting is a “very good” option, but she’s saving her vote for Nov. 4. “I like the traffic,” she said. “I like being in the hustle and bustle with everyone else and hearing what people are talking about at the polls.”

A few miles away at Ben Hill United Methodist Church, the Rev. Byron Thomas and his church are providing help to other churches’ Sunday voting efforts. Thomas’ executive assistant, who sits just outside his office, wears a “Souls to the Polls” pin on her lapel each day.

“We don’t have a van ourselves, but we are offering our people,” Thomas said. For him, Sunday voting is one important component to the overall push for increasing voter turnout in the black community.

“It’s about developing the habit of voting when you should vote, not just for midterm elections or presidential elections, but always,” Thomas said. “Our right to vote was etched in blood, now it’s our turn.”

State Democratic Party Chairman DuBose Porter said the state’s leaders “should be mindful of the magnitude of this progress,” which he said included “making it easier for working people to cast their ballot.”

Whether or not Sunday voting works out, election officials in general embrace early voting as a way to ease congestion on Election Day. There is also a matter of cost. Fulton’s Barron said that even with Sunday voting likely to increase the overall expense of early voting, “the price per vote is likely to fall well below that of the cost per vote on Election Day.”