415,631 Black Men In Georgia HAVE NOT Voted - Do YOU Know Any Of Them?

This post is personal.

This is for all the black men who:

• can figure out how to pay their child support on time, even when they are between jobs, without selling drugs or robbing anybody.

• have survived Iraq, Afghanistan, Desert Storm, Vietnam, Korea, and even World War II.

• are preaching their hearts out this Sunday because they know in these final hours how much we need it.

• take care of their elderly parents.

• teach other peoples children how to read and write.

• introduce music appreciation into your life.

• clean your teeth, listen to your heart, and keep your eyes healthy.

• ride on the back of garbage trucks to make sure our streets are clean.

• deliver packages, or groceries, or gas, or lumber, or concrete, or office supplies.

• pledge their very lives to protect and serve.

260,432 of the 676,063 black men registered to vote in Georgia have already cast a ballot in this presidential election. Which isn't bad...

...until you see that twice as many black women - 439,434 - voted last week.

If you will lose your job because you stood in line for eight hours to vote, I can understand why you haven't gotten to the polls yet. But the guys like the ones I listed above, who are as busy as you are, are no doubt a majority of the black men who made a way to vote early last week.

Which means, guys, that here in Georgia, the ball is in your hands on Tuesday. I say "yours" because I already pushed the button. And I'm a "three days before Christmas" type of shopper, so I know how it is when you are prone to wait until the last minute to get something done.

The reality is, if you haven't voted yet, you probably aren't reading this blog. But the people who do read this blog know exactly who you are. They are your brothers and sisters. They are your parents. They are your children. Your poker buddies. People who go to your church. Your neighbors. Your video gamer friends. Your MySpace and Facebook friends.

So if you know someone who you think has not voted yet, just ask them. I was out of town for a couple of days last week, and I asked almost every black man I saw whether he had voted yet or not - harder than it looks when you try to work a question like that into casual conversation.

LeBron James gave Obama more than $20,000. Jay -Z asks us to vote every time he steps in front of a mike. Emmitt Smith not only wrote checks, he's on the streets, getting people organized. EVERYBODY is getting in the game this time, fellas.

I just don't think, when the dust clears on Wednesday or Thursday, and the numbers start being totaled, that we could live with ourselves as men if we didn't turn out to push that button on Tuesday.

Is Obama going to fix our problems over night if he wins? Nope. He may even have to leave a whole lot of them untouched, depending on where our economy goes.

But that doesn't mean that getting him elected isn't important.

We can't put everything on the "government" without acknowledging that at some level, the government is us. It isn't a mirror of who we are on a literal level, but rather a reflection of the things we are passionate about as well as the things we choose to remain ignorant about as a collective.

So between now and Tuesday, especially my blog readers hear in Georgia, but readers everywhere - tell the guys you know who are prone to let voting slide:

They can "get on their grind" AFTER they stand in line.

They can "stack that paper" AFTER they help complete this election caper."

They can "handle their business" AFTER they they do this .

Holy Moses! Astonishing African American Voter Turnout In GA!!

[Sometimes I run across original research, original analysis, or hard-to-get information that is exactly the kind of stuff I live for - well thought out, well written, well researched commentary, the kind that your media experts get by the pound but think is too much for you to understand. The author goes by the handle Volvo Driving Liberal at the progressive political website DailyKos, where we are both active members. He has given me permission to publish his comments here. Enjoy]

Yesterday I went to the DeKalb County Voter office in Decatur, Georgia to cast my early vote and was absolutely overwhelmed by what I saw. Traffic in and out of the facilty parking lock was pure gridlock and obviously a precursor to what I saw inside. Lines snaked throughout the interior of the building in a well organized and coordinated manner, but what was shocking was the pure volume of people.

At least 800 were in line at the time I was in the facility based on my best guestimate. I spoke with several pollworkers and one told me they anticipated processing 10000+ voters yesterday on top of 26000 processed between the beginning of early voting on Sept. 22 through last Friday. Not only was the sheer volume of people a sight to behold, but the demographic mix was even more incredible.

In a county that is 55% African American, at least 95% of voters participating in the early voting program yesterday were African American! Another pollworker who told me he had been voluteering for years, said that he had never, ever seen such overwhelming turnout and enthusiasm.

Granted, yesterday was the last day for new voter registration in GA, but the line to the new voter registration desk was relatively small. The overwhelming majority of voters in line were already registered.

My only regret yesterday was that I didn't bring a camera to record the impact of what I saw. The passion and excitement of the men and women waiting in line to vote was palpable. Although many anecdotal stories never bear fruition in the big picture, I am going to go out on a limb and forecast that African American turnout in GA will blow way past forecasts, based on what I saw yesterday. If that happens, coupled with lack of passion on the part of Rethugs/Fundies, Saxby Chambliss is toast and Barack Obama could pull a surprise upset.

According the Atlanta Journal Constitution in this article here, the Georgia Secretary of State is estimating a very disproportionately high 39% of early voters are African Americans. The African American community represents 29% of registered voters in GA and cast 25% of the vote in the 2004 Presidential election.

This is all happening for a reason. The state Democratic Party and the Obama campaign have operated a well organized effort to register new voters and get them to the polls and the effort has paid off.....

"Don't Wait in '08" Program

According to the AJC:

Local party officials have been pushing early voting.

Melanie Goux, a vice chairman of the Fulton County Democratic Party said party officials launched a program months ago — Don’t Wait In 08 — to encourage early voting and registration.

The program is deliberately low-tech, and aimed at an audience that won’t be reached by the Obama campaign’s web-based get-out-the-vote efforts, Goux said.

"The African American community is not a monolith," Goux said. "We have a large section that is affluent and can be reached through the Internet. And we have a section that is low tech. We need to get the information to people who don’t use the web."

DeKalb, Gwinnett and Cobb counties have all launched early voting programs modeled on Fulton’s, Goux said.

Couple a blowout African American turnout with predictably strong performance in the liberal enclaves of Atlanta, Athens and to some extent Savannah, we can win this thing. Don't write Georgia off. We can win here.