Election Day has arrived, and the Rickey Smiley Morning Show crew is urging everybody to turn their voice into a vote. Rickey and the team open with the issues on the ballot, from everyday costs like groceries, gas and rent to the Supreme Court’s decision rejecting a request to set aside roughly 20,000 California mail ballots, and they challenge listeners to call their adult children and help older neighbors and church members get to the polls. Divine Nine leaders Cheryl W. Turner of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated and Jimmy McMichael of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Incorporated highlight efforts to get 100,000 Black men to vote early, note that more than 340,000 Black men had already voted early in Georgia alone, and point voters to resources like the 866-OUR-VOTE hotline and a virtual “Situation Room” on the NPHC YouTube channel. Their message: get off the sidelines, because your voice is your vote. 

Political voices Bakari Sellers and Roland Martin keep the energy high. Sellers cautions that voters may dislike both parties and that problems like affordability run deeper than any one politician, while Martin calls on Black churches to activate vans and buses and lays out the races and ballot measures he is watching across the South. Joy Reid, joining the show for the first time, calls this election one of the most consequential of our lives and says the vote is about protecting freedoms, household finances and Black representation. Their urgency matches the national picture, as Black early turnout reportedly surged across the South, with about 160,000 more Black ballots cast through October 29 than at the same point in 2022, amid redistricting fights following the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais. 

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