2023 General Assembly Budget Recommendation
February 16, 2023
2023 General Assembly Budget Recommendation
Dear Lieutenant Governor Jones, Speaker Burns, Senators, and Representatives:
As a coalition of community-based organizations who dedicated millions of dollars in collective resources to serve our communities during the 2020 census and subsequent redistricting cycle, we urge you to consider the following ways in which this year’s budget can advance civic participation across our diversifying state. This includes the following:
Raising wages for election workers
In order to maintain secure and fair elections across the state, all election workers should be paid the same living wage, freeing them to focus on their jobs instead of being forced to work multiple positions, or to seek the same job elsewhere, resulting in unequal access to the ballot box.
Expanding language accommodation on state websites and in polling places.
According to the American Immigration Council in 2020, immigrants represent one out of every ten Georgians, a number that will continue to rise.
We echo the recommendation made by the Georgia Immigration Rights Alliance in 2021, that these minimum set of language translations be made available to further civic participation: Spanish, Korean, Vietnamese, Mandarin/Cantonese, Hindi, and Arabic.
Allocating funds in preparation of the 2030 census
We urge the state to invest in long-term relationships with local outreach leaders, partners, and organizing coalitions who can aid in maximizing participation, particularly with organizations who are well-positioned to reach historically undercounted community members
Nonprofits are willing to fill funding gaps for language access and election worker pay, but are currently prevented from doing so due to provisions in SB 202.
If such provisions are to remain in the law, we are duty-bound to ensure the state has anticipated these needs in the budget, ahead of the next big election year.
Signed,
The Georgia Redistricting Alliance