Watchdog: 6th District race puts voting rights groups on the street

Rodney King (left), volunteer with New Georgia Project and Corbin Spencer (right), field director of New Georgia Project, help Rueke Uyunwa registering to vote for the District 6 runoff on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. HYOSUB SHIN / HSHIN@AJC.COM

Rodney King (left), volunteer with New Georgia Project and Corbin Spencer (right), field director of New Georgia Project, help Rueke Uyunwa registering to vote for the District 6 runoff on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. HYOSUB SHIN / HSHIN@AJC.COM

Record numbers of voters cast their ballots in Georgia last November and volunteers are scurrying around the 6th Congressional District registering scores of new voters ahead of the June 20th runoff.

Nse Ufot, executive director of the New Georgia Project, says increased access to the ballot has a lot to do with activist groups pushing against a state more inclined to put limits on registration and early voting.

Republicans, who hold majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly and every state constitutional office, have found resistance along the way to every attempted change, no matter how subtle, to voting procedures. A voter ID law passed in 2005 was tied up in court for years on claims that it would suppress black votes, but when it finally went into effect minority voting actually increased.

The legal action continues to this day. What effect will it have on the Georgia's 6th District runoff? Read this week's AJC Watchdog column to find out.