January 29, 2021: When you could have been doing anything else after a very, stressful election, you chose to take up the mantle and continue to educate, engage, and mobilize voters in Georgia. Alongside our partners from Women Engaged in Atlanta, PWN volunteers played a critical role in a runoff election with record-shattering voter turnout, especially among Black voters and young people. 

Words can never express the magnitude of our appreciation for each of our volunteers.

Let’s talk about what we did together:

  • We supported the efforts of our partners, Women Engaged, an Atlanta-based non-partisan organization that has been building power with Black women and young people in Georgia through years of tireless, year-round civic engagement work.  
  • Over the span of about one month, starting December 6, we partnered on 17 phone banks and nine text banks with Women Engaged, registering new voters and making sure all voters had the information they needed about absentee voting, early voting, election day voting, and “curing” ballots after the election (fixing any problems with absentee ballots to be sure they were counted).
  • 65 PWN members and allies signed up to take on a volunteer phone or text bank shift to help get voting resources and information to people in Georgia! Nearly half of you took on multiple shifts, and in total, you all completed 528 volunteer hours calling and texting voters.
  • The social media team completed four calls to action, helping to boost Twitter and Instagram from PWN and our partners about the Georgia runoff elections.
  • Together with Women Engaged’s team, we sent over 429,000 text messages and had over 25,000 phone conversations, and had over 60 new registered voters make it onto the rolls before the runoff election deadline
  • Around 4.5 million people voted in the Georgia runoff elections, including 3 million people who voted early. Black voters, Latinx voters, and young voters, in particular, rocked this election. These numbers are wild for a Georgia runoff election and rivaled the nearly 5 million votes cast during the general election. 

Because of you, your dedication, and your willingness to dig deep, voters in Georgia knew their vote mattered and they turned out.

One phone banker extraordinaire, Shari Leyshon, took on phone bank shifts even when she had the option to text bank. Many volunteers prefer texting to calling voters, but not Shari. 

“Speaking with voters in conversations that are personalized, and nonpartisan increases voter turnout. We empowered people with amazing resources to help them vote,” explained Shari. I’d already made calls during the general election, so I knew my back would be covered with highly skilled support. Calling with PWN and Women Engaged, who have and will continue to care for community and Georgians before, during, and after elections, was so powerful and such an honor. It meant a great deal to Georgians to both learn about We Vote, We Rise, and to be able to share their own deep concerns about their families and the country. To anyone considering making calls down the road, remember to keep going, keep going. You will do it just fine, and you’ll experience that joy of going together.” 

Another rock star volunteer was Alelia Munroe. She volunteered with PWN and Women Engaged on many text shifts. When asked why she committed so fiercely to text banking, she said, “One of the philosophies I live by is: If you’re not part of the solution, then you’re a part of the problem.” We couldn’t have said it any better ourselves.