Tyler Perry Flew to Georgia to Vote in Runoff Because He Didn't Receive Absentee Ballot in Time
Tyler Perry is making his vote count!
On Tuesday, the 51-year-old multihyphenate star revealed that he flew back to Georgia to vote in the Senate race after his absentee ballot failed to arrive in the mail.
On Monday, Perry tweeted that he never received his mail-in ballot. "Is anyone else having this problem? I ordered my absentee ballot on December 2nd. I’m told it was mailed on the 4th. I still don’t have it!" he wrote on Twitter.
Stacey Abrams, a former candidate for governor in Georgia, responded to the actor's call for help and noted that he could still vote in person. "Vote in person on Election Day!" she wrote back. "Just tell the person at the check-in table that you wish to cancel your ballot & vote in person."
The Madea star then told Abrams he flew back to Georgia earlier this week in order to cast his vote, saying that the election was "too important to miss." In a follow-up, Perry showed off his voter sticker, and said in a short clip, "Get out and vote, get out and vote, get out and vote, get out and vote."
On Wednesday morning, Rev. Raphael Warnock was projected as the victor over Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler in one of Georgia's close Senate runoff elections, according to multiple outlets — giving the Democratic Party one more seat in Congress.
Warnock, 51, will make history as the first Black senator elected from Georgia. Loeffler, 50, has not conceded and addressed supporters in a speech overnight, stating, "We have a path to victory, and we're staying on it."
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The state's other runoff election, between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican David Perdue, still hasn't been called, though Ossoff, 33, currently leads the race by a thin margin. The winner of that race will determine which party controls the Senate.
A record-breaking three million people voted early amid the ongoing novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Associated Press reported, while final ballots were cast in person on Tuesday.
Last year, in a deeply personal and powerful first-person essay for PEOPLE in June, Perry wrote about hope and his vision for the future of America.
"I initially said no, and that was strange for me because I’m a man of faith and I believe greatly in hope," Perry said at the time. "My reluctance wasn’t because I didn’t think it was important, and certainly not that I’m not outraged at the murder of George Floyd and so many others. It was simply because I was exhausted."
"I’m exhausted from all the hate and the division, the vitriol that I see online from one to another," he continued. "I’m exhausted from seeing these kinds of senseless murders play out over and over again with no changes in our society."
"The level of racism and brutality that George Floyd faced is something that we as black people know all too well. When I saw that video, I had so many raw, guttural emotions. I felt for him and his family, I felt for all of us as black people, I felt for my five-year-old son," he added. "As I watched with tears in my eyes, it brought back a flood of years of emotions from carrying what feels like the weight of racism on my neck."
Channeling his emotions, Perry noted, "I dried my eyes and put pen to paper for not only myself, not only for hope, but for morning to come for the millions of us who just want to be treated fairly, for those of us who want justice for all, and for my five-year-old son."
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