State Sen. Fran Millar, a Dunwoody Republican, says he will fight a proposal to allow Sunday voting in south DeKalb County. Millar sees the plan as a blatantly partisan effort to boost Democratic turnout and calls it “Chicago politics comes to DeKalb.”
“Is it possible church buses will be used to transport people directly to the [South DeKalb] Mall [polling place] since the poll will open when the mall opens?” Millar asked in a letter to local media outlets. “If this happens, so much for the accepted principle of separation of church and state.”
DeKalb Interim CEO Lee May has been quoted in local news reports as saying he plans to issue an administrative order allowing early voting on Sunday Oct. 26. Lee told ajc.com political columnist Jim Galloway that “I encourage everybody to be as creative as they can to get voters to the polls.”
In his letter, Millar said he planned to take legislative action in January “to close this election law loophole.”
Millar said the proposal was May’s third action that “disappointed those of us that hoped he could help bring the county together.”
Millar said May first set up a task force to review county government that included no one from north DeKalb until Millar complained. Millar said May later set up meetings throughout the county to meet the public, but scheduled only a single north DeKalb meeting before “again, I called his hand and several north locations were added with little publicity.”
Millar’s attack on Sunday voting immediately drew a counter-attack from the Young Democrats of Georgia.
“It is incredible that in the year 2014, we are still having to fight for ballot access in the African American community,” Young Democrats of Georgia President Corey T. Boone said in a press release. “Limiting ballot access and setting up education barriers for voter participation are tools of the past, and should be left there.”
As long as no candidate support is declared, it has long been accepted that church related organizations can provide transportaion to polling locations. The fact that someone in Georgia has realized that it would be a great potential way to increase voter participation by doing it on Sunday should be applauded. The opening of early voting to Sunday should be done state wide. It would benefit all voters, no matter which political party they may be aligned with at that time.