Blue Notes🎶

& News

Early voting is underway and runs through May 20th, and includes several weekend days, including Sundays for the first time in Hall County! You can vote TODAY!

Check My Voter Page to be sure you are registered, to learn what Georgia House and Senate District you live in, and to find out where you can vote.You can also view a sample ballot.

Make sure you have a valid ID when you go to the polls: https://www.hallcounty.org/259/Voting-ID-Requirements

Make sure Hall County Dems show up in large numbers to vote in the primary. Share voting information with your family, friends and neighbors. Take a friend to the polls!

Using the secure website ActBlue, you can donate to these Hall County Democrats running for office. Use the links below:

Kim Floria, GA HD30: https://secure.actblue.com/entity/fundraisers/134190

Follow Kim on Twitter and Facebook

Laura Colaninno, Hall County Commission District 1: https://secure.actblue.com/entity/fundraisers/135002

Devin Pandy, GA HD29: https://secure.actblue.com/entity/fundraisers/134763

Follow Devin on Twitter and on Facebook

You may also contribute to Mike Ford's campaign for U S House, 9th District of Georgia: https://secure.actblue.com/entity/fundraisers/132079

Check out Mike's website.

We'll add links for our other Hall County candidates as they become available. Candidates can email us at HallCountyDemocrat@gmail.com with information about their campaigns.

Hall County Dems have the opportunity to work with RideShare2Vote, a national organization that helps coordinate getting voters to the polls.

if you're interested in volunteering to drive people to the polls during the primaries or the general election, email Jennifer LaRose at jblarose13@gmail.com to learn more.

Want to help at the polls in November? Start preparing now by viewing the training available from the Georgia Secretary of State's website on being a poll worker or a poll watcher!

If you're interested in being a poll watcher, please contact us via email: hallcountydemocrat@gmail.com

Conner Evans of the Times called me for comment on the draft opinion overturning Roe. I said a lot of things, but he only chose to print (Times, May 6-7) my observation that Georgians were getting what they voted for. Georgians elected those in our legislature that have destroyed our freedoms and our reproductive rights. Lieutenant Governor candidate Butch Miller is the poster child for everything that’s wrong with Georgia politics. Representative Lee Hawkins is right behind him. We always get the government that we deserve. Why? Because election results prove what we did with our power to vote.

Twice as many Georgians voted on the first day of early voting this year compared to 2020. Republicans are out voting Democrats by ten points. We will, yet again, get the government we deserve based on what we do with our power to vote. This early voting trend does not bode well for Democrats, freedom, or democracy.

Is there a Georgia with reasonable freedoms associated with reproductive rights and private sexual activity? A Georgia where the private sexual activities of consenting adults are not government regulated? A Georgia where contraceptives, the morning after pill and the abortion pill are easily available? A Georgia where abortion up to 12 weeks is available upon request – and optional under conditions up to 22 weeks? A Georgia where citizens can love and marry whom they please? A Georgia where discrimination against LGBT is prohibited by law?

Yes, there is! But it won’t be the State of Georgia if Republicans get their way. This place of freedom is a country – the Republic of Georgia, formerly Soviet Georgia, the Georgia that rejected the government control of soviet Russia.

Every race in OUR Georgia is critical. Perhaps our state house and senate races are particularly so. Here’s what matters: If Democrats do not vote in the largest numbers that Georgia has ever seen, we will return to 1950. Maybe such a place is OK – if you are male. And if you are white. And if you are wealthy.

If you aren’t voting, do you really have something more important to do while our America commits a slow suicide? Don’t quit and don’t give up. Vote like your lifestyle depends on it – Because It Does!

As you can see by the list below, Georgia Democrats have a lot of excellent candidates running in 2022. That's why it matters so much that we all VOTE in the primaries! For those candidates shown in blue, click on their name to visit their site or Facebook page. And come to our May 9th meeting to hear our special guest speakers Bee Nguyen, Currie Hitchins, and Nakita Hemingway,

In a debate among all the GOP candidates for governor, Brian Kemp let slip that the REAL REASON for the egregious 2021 changes to our election laws were because he didn't like the outcome of the 2020 election! While we all knew that the purpose of the law was to make it more difficult for those who vote Democratic to vote, state GOP politicians have been lying for eighteen months about how those laws were to make voting easier, safer, more secure.

Last weekend, the Atlanta Press Club held several debates featuring candidates for statewide office. If you missed them, there are links below to 3 videos of Democratic candidates running for Lt Governor, Secretary of State, and Insurance Commissioner.

After the leak of the draft of the Supreme Court majority opinion to overturn Roe v Wade, Stacey Abrams suspending campaign fundraising to raise funds to support abortion rights.

Finally, if you're feeling overwhelmed about politics, here's a message from Galvanize Georgia, shared by former HCDP chair Kim Copeland. We hope this pep talk will help you put on your shoes and get out the vote for Democrats in 2022!

If there’s one thing that we should have learned from the Trump era, it’s that history is not destiny. Thinking based on historical trends from past elections won’t necessarily apply to the unprecedented circumstances of today’s political environment. Case in point, while the media is forecasting Democratic defeat and trumpeting the enthusiasm of the Republican base, Democratic fundraising efforts remain incredibly strong and resilient. Especially here in Georgia where candidates like Stacey Abrams and Senator Raphael Warnock are bringing in huge dollars. 

But what about the Georgia Democratic Party on the whole? Well, according to the AJC in 2018, the party had about $420,000 in cash on hand, now it has roughly $1.7 million in the bank and they have beefed up their staffing from five employees in early 2018 to 27 in 2022. That includes new positions like a director of digital organizing and deputies targeting Black, Asian-American, and Latinx voters. Now Republicans have also staffed up in response, but still, compared to where we were just a few years ago, this is night and day.

The Times recently published a letter from Brian Moss about the issue of selecting reading materials in our schools. Thank you, Brian, for focusing on the importance of following reasonable procedures in selecting books. You can read Brian's letter at the link below.

If YOU have an opinion you want to share, you can submit a letter to the editor here: https://www.gainesvilletimes.com/about-us-main/contact-letter/

If you'd like us to help with a letter to the editor, email hallcountydemocrat@gmail.com and put "letter to the editor" in the subject line.

State & Local News (Some links may require a subscription)

PLEASE NOTE: Any articles we post about 2022 Georgia Democratic candidates in contested primary races are intended to keep you informed. They are not an endorsement of any candidate.

National News (Some links may require a subscription)

Phone: (470) 892-5825