ATLANTA — Friday marks the final day of early voting in Georgia’s primary election, and the Georgia Chamber is encouraging voters to head to the polls as part of its “May Matters” initiative.
The nonpartisan campaign is focused on increasing civic engagement and encouraging more Georgians to participate in primary and runoff elections.
Georgia Chamber President and CEO Chris Clark says the effort is not about supporting any specific candidate.
“We already have 40 local chambers, we’ve got a variety of associations across the state that have signed on; all just pushing out this message to encourage your employees, your friends, and neighbors to go vote,” Clark said.
Clark says only a small fraction of eligible voters participate in primary elections, which gives those votes greater influence.
“So we want more Georgians, more hardworking Georgians to just go vote; not to tell them who to vote for but to be part of the process so that they’re engaged and they’re paying attention,” Clark said.
The chamber says research tied to the initiative found that primary and runoff votes can carry more weight because of lower turnout.
“What we found, we did the research, is that if you vote in a primary, your vote counts 4-times what it could count in a general election,” Clark said.
“And if you vote in a runoff it counts 12-times more. If you look at the last primary runoff in Georgia, something like 1.8 million people voted in the primary and under 400,000 voted in the runoff,” he added.
Election Day is Tuesday, May 19. Clark says the Georgia Chamber plans to continue its voter engagement efforts through next month’s runoffs.
WSB Radio’s Jonathan O’Brien contributed to this story.