There are 23,000 young voters in Georgia who just became eligible to vote who need to be registered

[Gothmog]

We need to get these young people to the polls

Link to tweet

In Georgia, about 23,000 young people were not old enough to vote in the super-close general election this year, but will be eligible to vote in the runoff election for U.S. Senate in January 2021 -- if they register to vote by December 7, 2020. At least one, and possibly two, Senate seats will be decided in that election. Control of the U.S. Senate could hang in the balance.

With a record turnout by young people in the general election, now is the time for all high school seniors and recent graduates to register to vote if they will be 18 by the runoff election on January 5, 2021.

Young people are allowed to pre-register to vote in Georgia if they are 17-1/2, and those who are pre-registered are eligible to vote as soon as they turn 18. In this case, the next election for many of these young people will be the January U.S. Senate runoff.

Don’t let confusing language in the Georgia election code or the Georgia constitution fool you into thinking that young people cannot vote in the runoff if they were not already 18 and registered in time for the general election.

[brer cat]

1. I suspect Stacey Abrams is already working on it. nt

[Hermit-The-Prog]

8. DU actblue link for donations to Warnock, Ossoff, Fair Fight ...

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dufor2020runoff

[napi21]

2. If they didn't vote in the Generakm they won't be permitted to vote in the runoff. :o( n/t

[Gothmog]

4. Georgia law is preempted by federal law

Georgia law on run offs is wierd but this is a federal election and that statute is preempted https://thecivicscenter.org/blog/2020/11/6/young-people-could-decide-the-georgia-runoff-races-for-us-senate

These state law sources say that the runoff is a “continuation” of the general election and that only those who were registered to vote in time for the general election can vote in the runoff. If that was the end of the story, then the 23,000 young people turning 18 after November 3 and before January 5, as well as all the people who were already 18 but simply did not register before the general election, would be completely out of luck.

But there is more to the story.

The National Voter Registration Act prevents states from maintaining a voter registration deadline longer than 30 days in advance of a federal election. Federal law overrides Georgia’s state law provisions that would otherwise prevent young people from registering now to vote in the runoff in January.

This is not just a hypothetical answer to an unresolved question that the courts will have to decide at some point in the future. The issue has already been decided through a lawsuit brought by the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP (represented by the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law) in 2017. The judge granted a preliminary injunction preventing Georgia from maintaining a deadline more than 30 days prior to a runoff for federal office, and the state accepted the ruling and signed a consent judgment obligating the state to follow federal law in the future.

The Georgia Secretary of State recognizes the force of this ruling and has marked December 7, 2020 as the deadline to register in order to vote in the January 5, 2021 runoff election.

These young people can vote if they register before December 7 even though they may turn 18 after December 7 but before the run off day

[napi21]

5. Thank you. I didn't know that. This case I'm really glad! n/t

[Gothmog]

6. No problem

Georgia law is different and your analysis would be correct for a state run off. In Texas, we have no party registration and so if you vote in one party's primary, then you are locked into that party runoffs and cannot vote in the other party run offs until the next two year election cycle starts.

[Gothmog]

7. Black youth -- who voted for Biden 90% to 8% -- were critical to flipping Georgia blue.

Link to tweet