The change to Georgia law that would bring Instant Runoff/Ranked Choice Voting to our state must come through an act of our state legislature.  Eventually our role will be to communicate to our Georgia State Reps and State Senators that we want them to support this change to our election system.

It’s never too early to begin that dialog. It’s not a bad idea to let your elected officials  know who you are in general, independent of any position you want them to take.  If you don’t know who represents you in the General Assembly, here’s how to find out.

• Go to the Secretary of State’s My Voter site. https://mvp.sos.ga.gov/s/
• This page has lots of useful information like voting locations and sample ballots. What we want to do here is use the site to find out who represents us in the General Assembly.
• First, enter the information on the right hand side - your first initial, last name, county of residence, and date of birth. Click Submit.
• If you are properly registered, the next screen you will see is the My Information Unless you haven’t voted in a while your status will show a green checkmark for Active. That’s good.
• On the top row of the screen, next to your name, click My Districts and Elected Officials.
• The next screen will display the various election districts you can vote for. The two we are interested in are State House and State Senate. Make note of both district numbers
• By clicking on either of these numbers, you will be taken to a page showing all the members of that body (initially in alphabetical order by name).
• In order to look up your Senator or Representative, click on the down arrow next to District in the heading. That will change the order. Scroll down to your district number and you will see their smiling face and name on the left of the screen. Click on their name, and voila! There is their contact information. Some legislators’ pages also contain a biography, so you can read more about them.

Keep in mind that this landscape can change. After the November 2022 elections, your legislator should remain in office at least until early 2025, but things could change. Legislators die and resign. It would be a good idea to check back from time to time to see if your Senator or Representative has changed. If you haven’t already, be prepared to contact them and introduce yourself. It’s better to be a known constituent than an unknown one.  Get on their email list if they have one. Elected officials sometimes hold in-person sessions with constituents in their district where you can interact with them.  In most cases they like to hear from the people they represent. They are just normal citizens like the rest of us. They don’t bite.