Clark Atlanta University graduate student Ahmad Minnis usually votes in his hometown of St. Louis, but this year, the 22-year-old said he’ll vote in Georgia for the first time.
“It’s imperative to vote here because my vote will go farther,” Minnis told Capital B Atlanta on Tuesday. “I feel as though St. Louis, Missouri, is OK.”
Clark Atlanta freshman and Chicago native Kennedy Atanda, 18, expressed a similar sentiment after casting her ballot in Georgia for the first time.
“It feels good,” she said. “My mom’s always instilled in me that you have to vote.”
During an “AUC March to the Polls” event Tuesday, Minnis and Atanda were among the hundreds of Atlanta University Center students who walked from the Thomas Kilgore Jr. Campus Center at Morehouse College to a temporary early-voting location at Friendship Baptist Church in the nearby Vine City neighborhood.
The two-day outing was organized by AUC student leaders in coordination with voter mobilization groups including Black Voters Matter and Georgia Stand-Up. It was designed to get as many AUC students as possible to cast ballots, according to student organizer Jaylon Coleman, 20, a political science major at Morehouse.
“Young people, we see what’s going on in this country and we’re going to continue to show up,” Coleman said. “People are dying everyday and we’re not receiving justice. We’re trying to use our voices to make sure that this doesn’t continue to happen in Georgia.”
An estimated 430 people voted on the first day of the early-voting event, according to LaShandra Little, Fulton County voter education and outreach manager. Many carried signs with messages like “This Yard Votes,” “Vote Like Your Life Depends on It,” and “Good Trouble Lives On” in a salute to civil rights icon and former U.S. Rep. John Lewis.
“It’s pretty good,” Little said, regarding college student turnout. “It’s definitely higher than 2022 for AUC and some of the other sites.”
Concerns about increasing homelessness in Atlanta and cuts to HBCU funding were two of the main drivers for voting among the AUC students who spoke to Capital B Atlanta.
“There’s so many homeless people on the corners,” Clark Atlanta sophomore Khalil Peavy, 20, said during the march. “When you drive out, they might knock on your windows. Stuff needs to change.”
Black people and college students overwhelmingly support Democrats during most election cycles. Increased participation by AUC students could help tip the scales in Democrats’ favor in a midterm election cycle where frustrations with the economy, data centers, the war in Iran, and President Donald Trump have dampened Republican voter enthusiasm in Georgia and across the country.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, and Fulton County Board of Commissioners candidate Rohit Malhotra were three of the Democratic leaders who were on campus to talk with student voters Tuesday.
Williams is up for reelection against Republican John Salvesen in her heavily Democratic district, which includes the combined AUC campus and Atlanta’s West End neighborhood.
Malhotra is running against fellow Democrat Aaron Sampson as well as nonpartisan candidates Natalie Hall and Karen Rene in the District 4 Fulton County commissioners race.
As of 11:18 a.m. Wednesday, Black voters unofficially have made up roughly 30% of the more than 2.1 million Georgians who cast their ballots early this election cycle, according to the secretary of state’s election hub website.
The 2,158,851 ballots cast in the race “shattered” the state’s previous early voting record, representing a roughly 22% turnout increase from the 2022 midterm election cycle, according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office.
Former Georgia NAACP President Gerald Griggs, who’s been tracking turnout data since early voting started Oct. 13, said Black turnout was as high as 37% during the first few days, but has declined about seven points since then.
Black voters make up about 33% of Georgia’s population and typically vote at a rate of 27% to 30%.
“It was at 37%, which would have been historic,” Griggs told Capital B Atlanta on Wednesday. “[35%] put us where we need to be. We need to over produce on our percentage, which we, as of this morning, are down a few percentage points.”
Early voting ends at 5 p.m. Wednesday at the AUC, but will continue at regular advanced voting locations through Friday, Oct. 30.
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