Have you heard about the effort to purge more than half a million registered voters from voting lists? The reason? The voters haven’t voted in three years.

Let’s call this what it is: partisan and racist voter suppression, and a violation of every Georgia citizen’s rights.

But purging the voter rolls is only a small part of the GOP effort to limit voting. Just this year Senate Bill 363 tried to reduce poll hours, end Sunday voting, and limit Saturday voting. All designed to reduce the voice of minority voters in DeKalb and Atlanta.

These antics aren’t new. Only a couple of years ago, Fran Millar was quoted in national media saying how he didn’t want black voters to show up at the polls.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that almost every day I have to explain to my children what politics and government used to be like, and why the behavior of our politicians and would-be leaders is unacceptable.

We must resist and reject the GOP’s efforts to normalize prejudice and oppression in Georgia. We must enshrine the values of equality, integrity, justice, and economic dignity that had started to take hold in our state. We must go back to the days when we expanded Medicaid, lowered class sizes, reduced college costs, and removed a racist state flag. We were never perfect, but we certainly were better than this.

We can increase early voting hours and locations, including weekend voting. We can get rid of racially motivated voter ID laws and registration purges. We can fix our districts so all voters have an equal voice in choosing our representatives.

We can do this together. We must take back our state from extremists. We must protect our democracy.

Will you join us? Give today. Volunteer. Vote Tuesday and vote in November!

—Sally