Meet the Houston County woman who could cast an Electoral College vote for Joe Biden

When Georgia finalizes its election results, Fenika Miller will cast one of Georgia’s 16 Electoral College votes for President of the United States, should President-elect Joe Biden win the state.

Miller, 45, said this is the first election where she has served as one of Georgia’s 16 Democratic presidential electors.

“This is a really exciting time for me, and I’m sure my fellow electors feel the same; we haven’t had this opportunity since I was a high school student when Bill Clinton won Georgia. That was 1992. So this is really an exciting time and an inspiring time,” Miller said.

Miller is a community activist who served as the chair of the Houston County Democratic Committee from 2010-2014, ran for the state house twice and is currently serving as the chair of the 8th Congressional District of the Democratic Party of Georgia.

“Right now, it’s just pride, pride in having been a part of this process, like I said, for over 12 years in state partisan politics, but I’ve been doing activism and organizing work since I was 12 years old,” Miller said.

The shift in Georgia politics

Being an activist nearly her entire life, Miller, a lifelong resident of Houston County, said she remembers when Georgia shifted to a Republican state in the late 1990s and early 2000s and how elected officials, like former Gov. Sonny Perdue, flipped from the Democrat Party to the Republican Party.

However, the results of the November election and even the results in the 2018 governor’s race showed a major shift in Georgia politics. The once reliably red state is now considered purple. As of 5 p.m. Thursday, Biden was leading President Donald Trump in Georgia by 14,071 votes.

NPR reported that suburbs voting more in favor of Democrats had a large impact in Georgia’s battleground status, but the demographics of Georgia voters have also shifted.

In 2002, more than 70% of Georgia’s electorate were white, but that number has decreased, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“We’ve known that the demographics in Georgia… have been changing for many years. I think members of both parties knew that and the writing was on the wall. Georgia is a blue state. It will go to President-elect Biden,” Miller said. “So we’re super excited that Georgia is going to be in the blue column this year, and we know that we’re going to have to work extremely hard to maintain that status.”

The Democratic Party in Georgia

Democratic leaders, such as former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, have been working for years to get people to register to vote and out to the polls.

“So every election cycle, and we know that we have elections every single year, we work to get out our Democratic Party base,” Miller said.

The Democratic Party uses phone banking, canvassing, event planning and other methods to reach voters in Georgia, and having dedicated people support the Democratic Party is one of the major reasons the party has gained ground this year, Miller said.

“The other part is having amazing candidates to run for office in hard-to-flip parts of the state. Even in Houston County, we had six amazing candidates to run as Democrats—the first time in over a decade that we’ve had a full slate of candidates to run,” Miller said. “It is all of the work of individuals who still believe that Democratic principles will fuel our economy and will help families to have a better quality of life and to thrive.”

However, Democratic candidates down the ballot didn’t see many gains. Miller said she was hoping for at least 10 Democrats to win Republican seats, but the party only won three seats against Republican incumbents.

“Few Democrats outside of the metro area won down-ballot and local races,” Miller said. “Flipping Georgia to blue is great. It was a tremendous feat. But down-ballot, we still have a lot of work to do in the community, like Houston County and throughout the 8th Congressional District.”

Allegations of voter fraud

Following Election Day, President Trump and other GOP leaders have made unfounded allegations of voter fraud in Georgia’s election, including Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler requesting the Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to resign from his position.

“It was a great night for the presidential election, but not so good for down-ballot races particularly outside of the metro area. So, you can’t call into question the top of the ticket, and then be okay with the bottom of the ticket. It doesn’t work that way,” Miller said. “Voter fraud does not exist, and it has been proven.”

The Georgia Secretary of State’s office has repeatedly denied finding any evidence of extensive voter fraud in the state and assured voters that allegations of fraud are investigated.

Miller said Georgia voters should not be worried about voter fraud, but they should be more concerned about voter suppression.

“Voter suppression is not necessarily just long lines or regressive policies regarding ballot access, but it is also what we’re going to be seeing next year when the state legislature goes back knowing that the handwriting is on the wall, that the demographics are changing in favor of Democrats. We’re going to see Republican-lead legislature redraw state house and congressional district lines to their advantage,” Miller said.

Georgia Republicans maintained control in the state house and senate, and with Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, they have the power to draw a favorable map of Georgia’s state legislative and congressional districts. The party in power gets to redraw district maps every 10 years, after the U.S. Census.

“As opposed to people being able to select their elected officials, elected officials are going to be able to select their constituents, and that is always bad for Georgia. That’s always bad for our community. It diminishes our ability to have representation and just fairness in the process. So, there’s a lot at stake,” she said.

The work ahead

Miller said she was proud that Houston County gave Biden his first bump in Georgia when they counted their absentee ballots, but the Democratic Party still has work to do in Georgia.

While spreading the message of the Democratic Party, Miller said it’s important to localize the issues, such as health care, internet access and infrastructure.

“We know that every state is different in their core belief system, and we know that every county is different. Every region of the state is different. Atlanta issues are not necessarily Houston County or Fort Valley or Macon-Bibb issues. So making sure that all of our county parties across the state are in tune with what’s going on in their local communities, and that we can message the core belief… where we all work to have — for every person in our community — a good quality of life,” Miller said.

“So messaging those issues, making sure that our community is informed, and just helping people to understand that Democratic policies benefit the community at large, more so than Republican policies.”

This story was originally published November 16, 2020 at 12:00 AM.