Not quite two weeks ago, I put up a post called What We Can Do: 85 Days, 85 Things and asked you to help come up with a list of 85 things we can do for the 85 days that were left.
Thanks to all of you, we now have a list of 81 things on that list, and 72 days left to do everything we can to save our democracy.
You can find the full list under Featuring in the sidebar.
By the way, is anyone even looking at that list for ideas? There’s no point in my adding to the list if no one is looking at it. :-)
Today we are featuring the action group Election Protection.
Election Protection (information supplied by Winston)
Watergirl asked me to write up a blurb about this information, so without further ado:
I was reading the comments in this WAPO article:
and felt compelled to post my own comment to the effect that democrats ought to raise their own army to monitor Trump’s army. I immediately was replied to that we already had such an organization and it was called ELECTION PROTECTION. Tens of thousands of volunteers. So I checked it out and signed up.
Per their web page:
The national, nonpartisan Election Protection coalition was formed to ensure that all voters have an equal opportunity to participate in the political process. Made up of more than 100 local, state and national partners, Election Protection works year-round to advance and defend the right to vote.
Election Protection provides Americans from coast to coast with comprehensive voting information on how they can make sure their vote is counted through a number of resources including:
1) a suite of voter helplines: 866-OUR-VOTE (administered by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law), 888-VE-Y-VOTA (administered by the NALEO Educational Fund), 888-API-VOTE (administered by APIAVote & Asian Americans Advancing Justice-AAJC), and 844-YALLA-US (844-925-52872) Arabic language hotline (administered by Arab American Institute);
2) voter protection field programs across the country; and 3) digital tools including 866ourvote.org, @866ourVote, and facebook.com/866OurVote
ELECTION PROTECTION VOLUNTEERS
Volunteer Opportunities with Election Protection – Educate. Empower. Protect.
Election Protection – led by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law – is the nation’s largest non-partisan voter protection coalition. Through the 866-OUR-VOTE hotline and our voter assistance field program, Election Protection helps ensure eligible voters are able to participate in our democracy while collecting data for meaningful reform so that our elections are free, fair, and accessible.
We are currently recruiting volunteers in a number of states across the country to help voters in 2020. Please note that we recruit volunteers in the states where they live and cannot support deployment to other states.
- Are you a lawyer, paralegal, law student or other legal professional? Sign up to volunteer with Election Protection at https://electionprotection.wetheaction.org/
- If you aren’t a legal professional, sign up with Election Protection with our nonpartisan poll monitoring program at https://protectthevote.net/
Please email [email protected] if you have any questions.
There go two miscreants
I have used the list a few times; really I should do so more often.
WaterGirl
@There go two miscreants: Someone has read the list, yay! :-)
Definitely not trying to make anyone feel guilty! Just don’t want to update the list if no one is reading it.
WaterGirl
I really should post these later. In California, no one is thinking about voting and organizing at 8am.
SiubhanDuinne
Please keep updating it, if it isn’t too much trouble! I’ve gone back to it a couple of times and expect to do so more frequently and regularly once the RNC is over and the election campaign gets going in earnest. When I was younger, that was usually shortly after Labour Day, but I’m not sure those calendrical guidelines apply any more.
ETA: I have no earthly idea where the italics came from. I tried to fix but it required a word at a time, and I’m just not doing that on the phone. Apologies for the inadvertent emphasis! (fixed)
Yutsano
I have my plan. I can only encourage those to do something similar. And my ballot will be tracked.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s really no trouble to update the list – as long as it’s useful to people.
(I snuck in a fix to your italics.)
WaterGirl
@Yutsano: Did you see the link in the sidebar under Featuring?
Voting Plan Illustrations
MazeDancer has already done 20 of them for BJ peeps. I think they’re great!
oatler.
Foxx is applauding DeJoy for his fine work and apologizing for Democrats’ behavior.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
Thanks for the fix.
WaterGirl
@oatler.: Foxx should apologize for breathing. That was my first thought. I’m beginning to think I’ve become uncivil.
Yutsano
@oatler.: He’s trying to coast on “only being in office 70 days”. That’s not gonna fly with Representative Katie Porter.
Madeleine
Yes, the list is useful and I will use it more after settling into new home. And thanks, Water Girl and others for making it.
BTW my nym and email had disappeared.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
I remember wondering in 2004 how she ever managed to get elected. I’ve wondered the same every time she’s been reëlected (7 so far). She’s just a horror.
BlueGuitarist
Yes, WaterGirl looking at the very useful list!
You (and others) encouraged de-lurking, effectively, so hi jackals!
In addition to the various ways already on your list for engaging at the state level, EveryDistrict has a Legislative District Index usefully indicating the competitiveness of state house and state senate districts.
The voter registration group Field Team 6 has resources and a list of purged voters, many of whom don’t know they’ve been taken off the voter rolls, people well worth contacting.
Field Team 6 uses Scrabble triple-word-score to emphasize the importance of places with overlapping competitive elections for President, US Senate, and US House. Some of those districts also overlap winnable state senate, state house, and county elections, some that could help flip those legislatures: synergy up and down the ballot!
As Marco Polo and others have pointed out, contributions to down ballot candidates will matter more than to candidates with many millions, and trickle up: a reverse coattail effect.
MomSense
State Democratic Parties often have voter protection teams. I’m on one and we get really good training from local lawyers who are also available on Election Day if we need them.
SiubhanDuinne
@Yutsano:
Isn’t AOC also a member of this committee? She’s a pretty good skewerer her own self.
WaterGirl
@BlueGuitarist: If you have links, I will happily add those to the list.
artem1s
I’ve been a little concerned about this push for everyone to request an absentee ballot. If you do so and don’t receive it in time or don’t think you can return it in time, voting in person may result in your vote not being counted. Anyone who is on record for having received a ballot by mail has to vote provisionally if they decided to vote in person on the day of. They also have to certify they didn’t mail in their ballot.
Here is the problem. Provisional votes are counted last – after in-person ballots. In some states they aren’t counted at all unless the vote is close and they want to avoid a recount. And the BOE hardly ever gets to them on the day of the election. Provisional ballots are why it takes so long to certify the final counts.
In the case of the certifying you didn’t use your mail in ballot – if you mail in your ballot and it never gets there and then go to vote on election day, you may still have both votes invalidated if some GOPer SOS decides there is fraud with all provisionals. I’m very concerned about the probability that provisional votes will never be counted and on the night of the election and that Trump will try to invalidate both vote-by-mail ballots and provisional ballots and claim victory based on in-person counts. In the 2004 election over 40K provisional ballots were never counted in Ohio.
https://www.motherjones.com/media/2005/11/recounting-ohio/
Take provisional ballots, which by law must be offered to any voter turned away at the polls (say, because the voter’s name doesn’t appear on registration rolls). Blackwell directed that a provisional ballot would count only if cast in the proper precinct—not just the proper county, as before. It was a recipe for chaos, given that some polling places included numerous different precincts, not to mention the fact that Blackwell had reorganized precincts throughout the state, leaving many voters confused about where to appear on Election Day. Some election officials made it clear they would disregard the ruling, including Robert Bennett, who chaired both the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections and the Ohio Republican Party. Blackwell threatened to remove Bennett from the board and his directive stood. In the end, an estimated 46,000 provisional ballots went uncounted.
I understand people wanting to vote by mail. But everyone needs to make a choice and stick with it. If you can vote in person, and feel safe voting early – I would advise not asking for a mail in ballot at all. Don’t think doing both will mean you have a better chance of getting counted. That may not be the case. Which ever you decide to do, just get it done and don’t try to hedge your bets by doing both.
oatler.
Fucking Gym Jordan
BlueGuitarist
@WaterGirl:
https://www.fieldteam6.org/
https://everydistrict.us/
WaterGirl
@artem1s: I am guessing that this might vary by state. Do you think that’s a good guess?
Maybe you could do some research and let us know what the rules are for each state?
Or if that’s too much work, maybe we could find another person to do half of the states. What do you think?
A Ghost to Most
All well and good, but the conflict will really ramp up the day after the election.
“Buckle up, folks, this sh..stuff is real.”
– Michael Steele
Doug R
@artem1s:
Like Michelle Obama says, mask up and show up on the first day of early voting.
If the lines are huge, I would suggest showing up the next day of early voting.
WaterGirl
@BlueGuitarist: Added!
We are up to 83 things on the What We Can Do list.
WaterGirl
@A Ghost to Most: We can’t do anything about what will happen the day after the election. Except by doing everything we can to turn out every vote.
Our focus needs to be on action, not on worrying, futility, or helplessness.
Lapassionara
@artem1s: I used to work on election protection, and this was a recurring issue: people who had requested an absentee ballot but who had not received one in the mail. It is really frustrating that there is no good solution.
many states have in-person absentee balloting, usually the month before the election. This is a better option in my view for the upcoming election, given what we are hearing about the USPS.
Benw
Election Protection is just one of many democratic prophylactic tactics!
Winston
@WaterGirl: This information is primarily about volunteering for poll watching. EP will provide training and information to any that want to volunteer thru their organization with rules specific to the state you reside in.
Josie
@WaterGirl:
This is so true. We must make our plan and stick to it, do what we can, and make sure we don’t drive ourselves and others to distraction borrowing trouble. Thanks for all your work to keep us focused and positive.
germy
Winston
I also noticed that my county Democratic committee is requesting volunteers for poll watching.
WaterGirl
@germy: That’s cool!
Added to the list. We are at 84.
Martin
So, I’m going to replant an idea in people’s minds regarding voting, since we don’t at this stage know how successful Trump will be in fucking this up.
When thinking of voting in person vs by mail, consider whether standing in line for some hours at the polling place to pull a lever is riskier in terms of catching Covid (or anything else for that matter) than by mail if the latter were to result in Trump winning and having 4 more years of this Covid response.
I would argue that people in battleground states consider saving up their social interaction time and invest it by voting in person. Now, that’s easy for me to say as not being in a battleground state, but I’m in the process of becoming a pollworker, because someone needs to take the risk of doing the job.
Omnes Omnibus
More and more people will use the list as we get closer to the election. Having a good resource is always a good thing.
Redshift
Our local Democratic party has an election protection group, too. I don’t know how much that’s a result of being in the DC area (lots of lawyers), but it’s another thing to check on to get involved.
Redshift
@artem1s: The campaign plan here in Virginia is to encourage people to apply for absentee ballots and return them as soon as they receive them, and then if they haven’t requested one by October 1, urge then to vote early instead. (You can request an absentee ballot up until October 31 here.)
Omnes Omnibus
I will post this again later, but I have a new favorite song. https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=JC8RhqO7YOs
WaterGirl
Appreciate all the feedback on the list. It is officially a keeper. Thanks.
WaterGirl
@Martin: Good thoughts, Martin.
I have been wrestling with that question, myself.
I condensed your thoughts, and added them as two items at the bottom of the list.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I listened to your song.
Added the link for inspiration, toward the top of the list.
Original Lee
I signed up for VoteRiders, but somehow missed the response emails for 3 weeks (!). I have tentatively agreed to some phone banking / text banking in Florida. I say tentatively because I have to be trained first and I missed the Zoom sessions for that.
WaterGirl
@Original Lee: Are you distracted? I am not as focused as I usually am. These times are hard. You might need to up your game if you want to volunteer with these guys. :-)
If you’re too late for them, there are lots of other places where you can help.
Original Lee
@WaterGirl:
I’m not distracted, but I was visiting a family member who has very spotty WiFi during the time period in which they responded to my volunteer application. I think I missed it when my email got caught up on returning to better connectivity. I think I’ll be hooked up to training soon, as the training coordinator and I have started chatting: