ATLANTA — Each vote represents a person - and a person can help decide an election.
Campaigns are already underway in an effort to claim the White House, an effort that includes getting to the root of what the Georgia electorate really wants.
Meet one voter and what's motivating them this election season.
Meet Devin Barrington-Ward, community organizer
A young leader with his hand in local politics, Devin Barrington-Ward is known as an outspoken community organizer most often seen at a Fulton County commissioner's meeting or speaking during public comment at Atlanta City Council meetings.
Barrington-Ward also is the managing director of Black Futurist Group, a social justice innovation firm that uses public policy, political education and community organizing to "reimagine Black futures," and teach others to as well.
He said he got his start in the political activist space because it's in his blood.
"It's actually something I consider to be part of my family lineage," he said. "It's an inheritance, if you will."
Barrington-Ward said his great-great-great grandfather Paul Bogle laid the foundation.
With statues erected in his honor, Bogle is considered a national hero in Jamaica. He led the Morant Bay rebellion against the British in 1865 and also fought for Jamaicans' voting rights and the end to the legal and economic discrimination of African Jamaicans.
Barrington-Ward said he's just following in his ancestors' footsteps.
Issues he cares about
What is best for his neighbors
Making waves again with an appearance at local municipality meetings in the wake of water main breaks in Atlanta, Barrington-Ward said he steps up to the podium to help those he shares his livelihood with.
He expressed that small changes in local issues can have a huge impact and ultimately, he cares for "what's best for my neighbors."
War in Gaza
"War is not good for anybody," he said.
The political activist described the events in Palestine as a genocide, adding that global issues have a way of impacting voters locally.
"Right now we aren't really hearing what folks want to hear from this administration, which is a pathway to ending this conflict and getting to a permanent ceasefire so that we can have peace in the Middle East and peace throughout the world, which means here in the City of Atlanta as well," he said.
His take on the 2024 election season
When asked if he could be convinced to use his vote to back a presidential candidate, he said ultimately, he's concerned this election season.
"That concern is manifesting in feeling like I'm between the hardest rock and the hardest place," he said.
Though he said backing a candidate feels like an impossibility, he does have hope that the nation's youngest voters can create change.
"When I have seen young people take to the streets like they did in 2020 like they did this year on college campuses across the country - that lets me know that the power is still there," he said.
As long as the youth feel that there's a future to fight for, he said, "we will have a future."
Watch our Voice of the Voter segment during The Georgia Vote Sundays at 11 a.m. on WXIA.
