Democratic organizers have a bad message for the White House on GOP-led voter suppression

While White House officials continue to be dedicated to the proposition that grassroots groups can "out-organize voter suppression" efforts in the states, leaders of those very same grassroots groups have a different message for the White House: "We're fucked."

That's exactly what Georgia organizerNsé Ufot told Politico about the GOP's new voter suppression laws in the crucial swing state.

Ufot, who's the CEO of the Stacey Abrams-founded New Georgia Project, said their organization is trying to lay the groundwork to overcome the Republican attack on voting rights in the state, but "if there isn't a way for us to repeat what happened in November 2020, we're fucked," she said. "We are doing what we do to make sure that not only our constituents, our base, the people, the communities that we organize with, get it. We're trying to make sure that our elected officials get it as well," Ufot added.

In other words, yes, we're organizing on the ground, but hey, elected officials, how about you do your part too?

Activists across the country are desperately trying to disabuse White House officials of the notion that inaction is a reasonable course of action to combat the raft of GOP-led voter suppression laws already passed in some 18 states.

In Georgia, one of the most onerous changes to state voting laws is the voter identification requirement for mail-in ballots that could prove prohibitive for nearly 300,000 voters who lack such identification. In addition, the GOP's severe reduction in the availability of drop boxes could jam hundreds of thousands more voters in the Atlanta suburbs who used those boxes to cast ballots in 2020, along with voters in other parts of the state. Taken together, those two changes alone threaten to impact hundreds of thousands of voters in a state where then-candidate Joe Biden eked out a win by roughly 12,000 votes.

The Georgia State Democratic Party is rushing to reactivate its 2018 midterm network in order to train county chairs, Democratic activists, and voters in all 159 state counties on the new voter ID laws, according to Politico. The party has also hired three new outreach directors for Black, Latino, and Asian American communities.

Democratic activists in the Peach State will get somewhat of a trial run for their new organizing efforts later this fall during the Atlanta mayoral election. While the political contours of Atlanta-based Fulton County are somewhat distinct from other areas of the state, it's also the most populous county and critical to Democratic fortunes.

But Democratic organizers in states across the nation face similar hurdles, and organizers continue to be baffled by the lax response from Democrats in Washington.

"I'm super worried," said Max Wood, founder and CEO of progressive data analytics firm Deck. "I do think there are times when this kind of stuff can galvanize enthusiasm and turnout," Wood added, "but I don't know that that will be enough, especially with how extreme some of these laws are."

And for all the pitfalls the Biden administration has avoided repeating from the Obama administration, failing to properly elevate 2018 and spearhead a coordinated midterm campaign could potentially prove catastrophic for Democratic fortunes nationwide, not to mention President Biden's agenda.

"I don't think the Democratic Party as a whole is prioritizing this issue and its potential damage in the way that they should," said Doug Herman, a lead mail strategist for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. "We just went through an insurrection that was stoked by voter fraud lies, and the reaction to that from the Republican Party is to restrict the voting process so severely that only their voters can participate. And I don't understand the lack of fierce resistance to that from Americans and Democrats."