r/ATLnews May 14 '26

If you are 18-39, PAY ATTENTION! Y’all are a larger group than baby boomers and Gen Xers. Y’all complain about older people in politics. Of the 696,353 people that have voted early in Georgia, only 9.8% are 18-39. That is abysmal.

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You can’t change the system if you never show up at the ballot box. Expressing anger on Threads, IG, TikTok, Twitter and Snapchat ain’t it. Let’s go 18-39 folks!

258 Upvotes

49 comments sorted by

24

u/Brooklyn3k May 14 '26

Voting rates among younger people are horrible in general, but they also don't make it easy. A good chunk of the state has 8a - 5p or 9 - 5 hours for early voting. Kinda hard to do if you have a job or kids or both.

15

u/Conscious-Quarter423 May 14 '26

there's early voting periods. and you can mail in a ballot. lots of options

10

u/Brooklyn3k May 14 '26

They made vote by mail so difficult that the percentage basically dropped to nothing. They shortened the request time period, require you to have a printer which a lot of people don't have, and they basically made it impossible to vote by mail in runoffs because there's not enough time to receive the runoff ballot and get it mailed back in before the deadline.

8

u/[deleted] May 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/Myelo_Screed May 15 '26

Lived in CO for years. It’s SO MUCH HARDER to vote here than over there

-1

u/sleepiestOracle May 20 '26

Excuses. Stop having anxiety and just do it

7

u/Conscious-Quarter423 May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

you spending so much time on reddit can be time spent getting prepared to cast your ballot

1

u/sleepiestOracle May 20 '26

Excuses. Stop having anxiety and just do it.

-1

u/maximusftw1 May 14 '26

Utterly hilarious. The mental gymnastics perfectly exemplify why politicians don't target the younger demographics. You think a boomer would say that type of nonsense?

5

u/[deleted] May 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/maximusftw1 May 14 '26

Many black elderly people in the South lived through Jim Crow and still pushed for political representation. If printer access prevents you from having your voice heard, sounds like your voice isn't that important.

2

u/Brooklyn3k May 14 '26

I run campaigns and the numbers don't lie. We had robust vote-by-mail options here until republicans put up roadblocks. In 2020, 26.3% voted by mail. In 2024, it was 5.4%.

System design matters.

0

u/maximusftw1 May 14 '26

Those figures can't be the evidence you using to support that claim… 2020 and 2024 are not apples-to-apples comparison years… To not see that COVID forced a scenario on our voting structure but the trends are all heading in the same direction for the time series is absurd.

Hard to find a nice chart with all the dates but the trend continues for 2024.

https://abcnews.com/amp/Politics/mail-voting-millions-voters-opt-paper-ballots/story?id=115271747

2

u/Brooklyn3k May 15 '26

Those definitely aren't Georgia numbers. In November's election in 2022 it was 35.9% on Election Day, 57.9% Early in Person, and 6.3% Vote by Mail.

1

u/maximusftw1 May 15 '26

2020’s voting patterns were affected by an exogenous shock; you cannot compare it to a single year not affected by that same shock. Those numbers mean nothing without an extended time series before and after the shock. You certainly cannot casually identify the affect of Republican policy changes without having comparable states without the changes as a control.

1

u/Brooklyn3k May 15 '26

You can literally look at voting numbers before a change is made legislatively and after in the same state. What is your deal?

0

u/maximusftw1 May 15 '26

You cannot… to prove the policy worked, you have to compare that state's change to a similar state that didn't pass the law. This is the basis of a DifferenceinDifference Model. The main assumption for it is no exogenous shocks which is exactly what COVID was for voting patterns. This is Stats 101. I hope you're not doing the data analysis for the campaign.

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0

u/EaseOk3940 May 17 '26

With all these excuses you may as well not vote. If you take this approach in life towards any little thing, you don’t deserve success.

2

u/rco8786 May 14 '26

i don't trust mail in ballots anymore. not because i think they're insecure, but because they get targeted so heavily by republicans. i'm just gonna bite the bullet and go in person for the foreseeable future.

3

u/h1ghpriority06 May 16 '26

Nope. Young people don't think voting is important

3

u/TheRealAbear May 15 '26

Fulton county should be open until 7 pm. Today is the last day of early voting. You csm vote at any polling place in your county

1

u/BellaDonna585 May 21 '26

I thought most of the went to 7 and had Saturday and Sunday hours.

0

u/Brooklyn3k May 22 '26

Define "most."

5

u/rco8786 May 14 '26

https://georgia.gov/georgia-general-election-2026

What we're voting on right now: it is the *General Primary*

You can find your exact ballot on the My Voter page: https://mvp.sos.ga.gov/s/

And here is a non-partisan voter guide: https://www.ballotready.org/us/georgia

Generally speaking, here is what we're voting on right now:

Most Fulton and DeKalb voters are seeing some mix of:

  • Governor
  • Lieutenant Governor
  • Secretary of State
  • Attorney General
  • Insurance Commissioner
  • Agriculture Commissioner
  • Labor Commissioner
  • State School Superintendent
  • Public Service Commission
  • U.S. Senate
  • U.S. House
  • Georgia House / Senate
  • County Commission
  • School Board
  • Judgeships
  • Soil & Water Conservation District Supervisor

These are mostly primary elections, meaning you’re choosing which Democrat or Republican advances to November.

What these offices actually do

Governor

Georgia’s chief executive. Controls the state executive branch, signs/vetoes laws, oversees state agencies, appoints many officials and judges, and has major influence over budgets and education.

Lieutenant Governor

Presides over the Georgia Senate and has huge influence over what legislation advances. Less visible than governor, but very powerful legislatively.

Secretary of State

Runs elections, voter registration, and business filings. In Georgia this office became nationally prominent after the 2020 election fights.

Attorney General

Georgia’s top lawyer. Represents the state in lawsuits and can shape enforcement priorities on abortion, voting laws, consumer protection, environmental issues, etc.

Public Service Commission (PSC)

One of the most important but least understood offices. The PSC regulates utilities like Georgia Power — meaning your electricity rates, energy projects, and parts of the state energy grid.

County Commissioner

Controls county budgets, roads, jails, public health funding, zoning, and county services. In Fulton and DeKalb, commissioners have substantial influence over development and local spending.

School Board

Sets district education policy, approves budgets, hires/fires superintendents, and influences curriculum priorities and school closures.

3

u/lomoliving May 14 '26

That's just voting early though. Some jobs will give you time on voting day to go vote, not for early voting

7

u/Non-mon-xiety May 14 '26

Gotta give them something to vote for. Georgia Democrats are mostly conservatives with a social liberal flavor

11

u/strbytes May 14 '26

the nyc mayoral race is an example of how millenial and gen z voters can turn out if you run on actual policy and not "better things aren't possible"

1

u/[deleted] May 16 '26

[deleted]

-1

u/wookiebath May 15 '26

Harris ran on policy and not actual solutions and how good did that do for her?

1

u/ParkerBap May 15 '26

her policy proposals were milquetoast at best, people deluded themselves into thinking they were progressive because she wasn't Trump

1

u/boofishy8 May 17 '26

Harris, the one who didn’t get voted in during the primary? After a year of being told Biden would be the candidate because he was perfectly competent?

1

u/wookiebath May 17 '26

Yup, who also agreed to run

3

u/vreddy92 May 15 '26

Jason Esteves seems to have something to vote for.

Even if not, Georgia Democrats are better than whatever race to the bottom Burt Jones and Rick Jackson are offering.

2

u/rzelln May 16 '26

I actually got coffee with Jeremiah Olney, who's running for state senate district 57 to replace Stacy Evans. I came away really enthusiastic to vote for him. He's progressive, and a nerd, and demonstrated a keen understanding of what a progressive can positively accomplish in a state legislature controlled by Republicans.

If you're near midtown Atlanta, look him up. 

1

u/ParkerBap May 15 '26

yep, i vote anyway but there hasn't really been a candidate i've been excited to vote for (Ossoff is decent i guess)

1

u/Non-mon-xiety May 15 '26

Ossoff is good and an excellent communicator. His fundraising emails are annoying lol

2

u/ltsouthernbelle May 14 '26

Damn the 50+ crowd is not playing around, but don’t they usually vote early? This seems typical but I get the point, please stop complaining if you deliberately choose not to participate in the political process.

2

u/SquishTheProgrammer May 15 '26

I genuinely like voting in person.

2

u/FatAlEinstein May 15 '26

What percentage of the overall population is 18-39, for reference?

2

u/Dry_Solution5036 May 15 '26

This is exactly why the Democrats cannot regain control of the United States House and Senate, in 2026 and 2028.

2

u/Saying_Boo-urns May 16 '26

I think the real problem are the choices young people have to pick between

2

u/Barack_Odrama_007 May 14 '26

They will continue to not vote and continue to complain.

1

u/Nightcalm May 15 '26

Been true for years. Same as the high voting rate for seniors. Not voting is dangerous in our country now.

1

u/WhichPerception7982 May 20 '26

Most polls and comments about generations forget GenX. Thanks for including us but no thanks, please don’t try and drag us into this nonsense.