“People are disgusted,” said Cathy Kouts Sigmon, the group’s founder. “They are relating these projects to how they vote and how their family members vote.”
Proponents of voting rights in Georgia, who claim to have delayed or eliminated some restrictive projects, are targeting local companies that have supported project sponsors, including Home Depot, Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines and UPS. An advertising campaign led by votes and civil rights groups it requires companies to use their lobbying force at the Georgia State House to prevent repressive voting projects instead of contributing to their Republican authors.
“They spent most of Black History Month bombarding us with quotes from Martin Luther King, but now that the future of blacks is in danger, they are silent,” said Nsé Ufot, chief executive of one participant, New Georgia Project, last week. . “We are using digital ads, billboards, direct action in deposits and call centers – we are serious. This is urgent.”
A possible sign of some success: on Sunday, the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, whose members include these companies, expressed “concern and opposition” to the restrictive clauses of two Republican bills.
Increasingly, however, the focus is on federal legislation. Sigmon’s group is recruiting Arizonans to lobby their senators in the electoral bill. Like the local chapters of Indivisible, a movement founded in response to Trump’s election in Georgia and Arizona.
And also the national defense groups. Common Cause runs telephone banks during the week, recruiting supporters for the bill, and says it has generated 700,000 text messages supporting it. “It has been an incredible show of support, because we all know what this moment means,” said Izzy Bronstein, the group’s national campaign manager.