Columbus resident Dorris Porter Edgerton is aware of the Republican-led redistricting efforts looming in the General Assembly, but she's more concerned about a lack of Black voter engagement in the state's second-most populous city.
"We have lots of people who really just do not vote at all because they say it won't make a difference," Edgerton, 80, told Capital B Atlanta during a May 12 campaign stop by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms at the Columbus Public Library.
"This is what I hear, especially talking to younger people. Some just don't vote. They say, 'It's going to be done the way [those in power] want it to be done anyway.'"
Columbus residents like Edgerton live in Georgia's 2nd Congressional District, a predominantly Black area that includes parts of central and southwest Georgia. It is the state's largest congressional district by land mass.
U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, the district's representative since 1993, has been identified as the Georgia lawmaker most likely to lose his seat if Republican-controlled redistricting efforts move forward.