Lavonia Business Owners Looking for Volunteers to Help Get Out the Vote
Two Lavonia business owners are asking for people to volunteer to get more people to the polls in November.
Marcella Wright is co-owner of Sweet Combs of Honey downtown. At Monday’s City Council meeting, Wright said voter turn out at the last election was low and more people need to get out and vote.
“We want to urge everyone in the City to vote,” she said. “In the last City election we only had 303 registered voters cast ballots out of 1,300. That’s not enough. And this is going to be an important election because there are a lot of contested issues and I want everybody getting out.”
Wright said her group needs volunteers who understand the importance of casting a ballot to help with their Get Out the Vote campaign.
“So we’re looking for volunteers to call people who are registered to vote, and also we’re looking for people to have voter registration cards in their businesses,” she explained. “And also, we’re going to have a booth at the festival for people to register to vote.”
One area Wright asked the City for help with was transporting people to the polls on Election Day.
Wright asked if the City owned a bus or van they could use, because she said she was concerned about the liability a private citizen might incur transporting someone to the polls.
However, City Attorney John Dickerson said loaning out a city vehicle would be a conflict of interest.
“It would be a real problem for a government to sponsor that,” he said. “I’m very concerned about the potential conflict and a challenge to the vote if the government had anything at all to do with it other than the election itself.”
Dickerson said it would be OK for churches or civic organizations to get transport people to the polls.
Councilman Eddie Floyd suggested Wright check with local churches for help with driving people who need it to the polls.
Anyone interested in volunteering with the Get Out the Vote campaign can contact Wright at the Sweet Combs of Honey shop at 706-356-2398.