A topic that will be missing at the Democratic debate: who'll be able to vote?

Democratic presidential candidates have been urged to address modern-day voter suppression at Wednesday’s debate in Atlanta by the chair of Georgia’s Democratic party.

Nikema Williams, a Georgia state senator and the first African American woman to hold leadership of the party in the state, told the Guardian she would like to see “multiple questions” related to voting rights asked of the 10 candidates set to appear on Wednesday evening.

“I would like to see multiple questions because there are multiple suppressive tactics at play here [in Georgia],” Williams said on Tuesday. “I’m hoping that on the debate stage tomorrow night we hear not only the issue of voter suppression because it was so front and center here, but also, how do we address it moving forward?”

The issue of voter suppression in Georgia was thrust into the national spotlight last year during Stacey Abrams’s historic bid for the governorship, which she lost by about 55,000 votes amid allegations of voter suppression at the hands of her Republican opponent, Georgia’s former secretary of state Brian Kemp.

Since a 2013 supreme court decision removed central protections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Georgia and dozens of other states have implemented new laws, including voter rolls purges, stricter registration criteria and Voter ID laws, which opponents say make it harder to vote and target minority communities who tend to vote Democrat.

Despite this surge in new practices, the issue has not been raised in any of the Democratic primary debates so far.

“Every candidate on that stage should want exactly what we want as Georgia Democrats, and that is when we look someone in the eye and tell them to show up and vote and that their vote will be counted, we need to mean it. And I’m looking forward to hearing how the presidential candidates address that,” Williams said.

Williams was among a group of protesters arrested at the Georgia state house last year during a voting rights rally held while the outcome of the gubernatorial election was still being decided. The case against Williams and 14 others was later dropped.

Although all the Democratic presidential candidates support automatic voter registration for voting age Americans, a central part of voting rights legislation passed by the Democrat controlled House of Representatives but not by the Republican Senate, there is significant disagreement on other voting rights issues.

While many Democrats, including senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, support abolishing the US electoral college in favour of a popular vote to elect the president, other more centrist candidates are opposed to such a move. Candidates including mayor Pete Buttigeg and former housing secretary Julián Castro support lowering the voting age to 16, while others including billionaire hedge fund manager Tom Steyer oppose it.

With the particularities of voting rights up to debate, advocates are hoping to make the topic a national conversation before Americans head to the polls.