National Muslim Voter Registration Day: What's motivating Georgia's Muslim voters ahead of the election?

At the West Cobb Islamic Center in Marietta on Friday, there was something else on the agenda besides prayer: getting people registered to vote.

The effort was part of National Muslim Voter Registration Day, with the Georgia Muslim Voter Project working to register new voters, check existing registrations, and prepare people to head to the polls in November.

But identifying what will motivate Muslim voters once they get to the voting booth is considerably more complicated.

"There's not like one single identity that they hold," said Urooj Ali with the Georgia Muslim Voter Project. "We've spoken to Muslim voters who, you know, lean right, who lean left."

The organization estimates there are roughly 100,000 registered Muslim voters across Georgia, most of them in metro Atlanta. The figure is an estimate; Georgia voter registration records do not identify voters by religion.

Ali said many of the issues the organization hears about from Muslim voters are the same ones being discussed by voters across Georgia.

"They're Georgians, so they care about the same issues that any other Georgia voter cares about," she said.

Those concerns include affordability, housing, education, health care and safety. But there is another conversation happening, too.

For some Muslim voters, events thousands of miles away are also part of the political conversation at home.

"Definitely, the war in Iran is an issue," Ali said. "Definitely, the crisis in Palestine is an issue that Muslim voters are really top of mind right now."

With domestic politics and foreign policy concerns meeting at the ballot box, some issues can create common ground among Muslim voters who otherwise come from widely different political and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Dr. S. Rashid Naim, a political scientist at Georgia State University, said foreign policy is one of them.

"Foreign policy issues are one of them," Naim said. "But where you do see a more coalescing, if you will, of Muslims from different backgrounds and different socioeconomic status, generally speaking, on local political issues — you'll find the same diversity of opinion that you find in any other section of the community in Georgia."

Naim, a principal senior lecturer in Georgia State's Political Science Department, specializes in areas that include international relations, religion and politics, Middle East politics and South Asian politics.

For the Georgia Muslim Voter Project, the objective is not which box those voters check. It is making sure they show up.

The nonpartisan nonprofit works to increase political participation among Georgia Muslims through voter registration, education and turnout. The organization says it has connected with more than 50 mosques across the state.

And in elections where margins can sometimes be small, Ali said participation matters regardless of which candidate ultimately receives a voter's support.

"Some elections are won with like 20 votes or 153 votes," Ali said. "I don't care who you vote for, but I want to see how this plays out."