Odhiambo Orlale
20 October 2008
Atlanta, Georgia — Hundreds of voters flocked to the polling stations to elect the next President of the United States two weeks before the official day, thanks to the electoral law that allows absentee ballot.
They joined an estimated 500,000 voters out of the registered 5.6 million in Georgia State who include Mr Andrew Young, a former right hand man of the slain civil rights leader, Mr Martin Luther King Jr, to ensure that their favourite presidential candidate between Senator Barack Obama of the Democratic Party and Mr John McCain of the Republican party.
Under that law, a voter can choose to skip the anticipated long lines on November 4 by choosing the three following options: vote absentee by mail; vote absentee in person; or vote in advance at designated centres.
The city was on Saturday awash with campaign T-shirts, posters and stickers of the two candidates in the State which made history in 1972 by electing Mr Young as its first black congressman in 101 years.
Strategic locations
Agents of the two presidential candidates were seen stationed in strategic locations including pubs, wooing voters in their party offices, street festivals, shopping malls and train stations, side by side with television advertisements.
When contacted, some of the agents for the McCain and the Obama campaign teams said they were targeting one million voters to apply for an official absentee ballot, which would enable them to vote in advance.
But the ballots will not be counted until November 4 when they will be put together with the votes of other voters and counted together.
The votes are kept in safe custody and it is a top secret who would get the precious votes to be allowed to be the next occupant of the White House.
After casting his ballot last Thursday in Atlanta, where he had served as mayor, Mr Young said: "I often say that marching from Selma to Montgomerry.
"If I had said to Martin Luther King that I wanted to be a congressman, mayor of Atlanta, ambassador to the United States, he would have thought I was crazy. I don't think we were ever thinking of a black president."
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