All Hands on Deck for Hands Off Our Vote!
As the November mid-terms approach, Indivisible is urging its members across the nation to help protect the integrity of the elections in the face of a sweeping multi-pronged effort by the Trump Administration and its MAGA adherents to control the outcome.
Indivisible introduced its Hands Off Our Vote! program July 30 in a national Zoom meeting which drew 5,500 participants.
That’s the good news. Here’s the bad news: 5,500 people nationwide is not nearly enough to carry out Indivisible’s comprehensive election protection plan. That’s why for its plan to succeed, even in blue California, you must get involved. And there's no better way to get started than joining with other local Indivisible members, like those in IAP, to help carry out the national plan here in our area.
Fortunately, the options for involvement—outlined in Indivisible’s Hands Off Our Vote Toolkit –are many and varied. There’s something for everyone at any level of engagement or capability. You can do a lot of things from the comfort of your own home. For the more adventurous, there are plenty of opportunities to hit the streets if and when the time comes.
Here’s a rundown on some of the things you can do beginning today:
Personal: Make sure you and your family and friends, wherever they live in the nation (for instance your young adults) are registered to vote, have ID that proves their citizenship, and vote as early as possible to help insure their votes are counted.
GOTV: Join a get out the vote effort by post-carding, phone-banking, and/or canvassing for local, state, and federal candidates. This will be especially important in three California districts that are close and could wind up determining which party winds up controlling the House come January. They are located in North San Diego County and Central Valley.
Contact Election Officials and Even Local Sheriffs: Urge county registrars of voters and other local election officials, state secretaries of state, state attorneys general, and governors to develop a comprehensive plan to counter efforts already underway by the Trump Administration to undermine the upcoming election. These efforts include imposing controls on who can vote and how, purging voter rolls, and the possibility of coercive intervention at polling places and vote counting centers, as well as repression of protests should MAGA forces steal the election. Tell state and local officials to join other officials throughout California and other states to be ready to seek court injunctions at the slightest hint of federal or militia interference at polls and vote counting centers. Ask them to publicly outline their plan for making sure that local and state law enforcement agencies protect the state-governed election process from illegal federal interference, making sure people can cast their ballots without fear and that votes can be counted securely and fully. For that matter, ask your county sheriff about this and call on them to uphold your voting rights and first amendment rights to protest, should that become necessary. Ask your governor about his or her plan for making sure that the National Guard is not federalized to suppress legal protests of federal government interference in the election. Here are the officials to contact:
Dean C. Logan, Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, 12400 Imperial Highway, Norwalk, CA 90650-8357, (562) 462-2716, Fax: (562) 929-4790, recorder@rrcc.lacounty.gov, voterinfo@rrcc.lacounty.gov, lavote.gov
Robert G. Luna, Sheriff, 211 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, (213) 229-1850, Fax: (323) 267-6600, Contact LASD lasd.org
Shirley Weber, California Secretary of State, 1500 11th Street, Sacramento, CA 95814, 916-653-6814, Or email the secretary’s Elections Division here: https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/contact/email-elections-division
Rob Bonta, Attorney General, California Department of Justice, P.O. Box 944255, Sacramento, CA 94244-2550, (916) 210-6276, Email at: https://oag.ca.gov/contact/general-contact-form
Governor Gavin Newsom, 1021 O Street, Suite 9000, Sacramento, CA 95814, (916) 445-2841, Email at: https://www.gov.ca.gov/contact/
Become a Trusted Source of Information: Attend upcoming Indivisible training sessions on the Hands Off Our Vote! Program. Write letters to the editor, post information on social media, participate in press conferences and writing and distributing press releases that quickly counter misinformation being planted by MAGAs to inform your fellow citizens of their voting rights.
Polls & Vote Counting: Volunteer to become a poll worker and poll observer and also look to this space for information on how to join with fellow Indivisible members to observe the vote counting process.
Rapid Response: Much like community self-defense against ICE raids on immigrants, Indivisible is calling for formation of organized rapid response groups to document and publicize presence of armed agents or MAGA militias at polls to intimidate voters or federal raids on vote counting centers to seize ballots and halt the vote counting based on trumped up claims of election fraud. Rapid response also could be needed to counter pre-election attacks.
Finally folks, I’ll just sign off with this: I first voted in 1972 and have voted in every election since then. Even considering Bush v. Gore in 2000, never in my life did I believe that mainstream people would be discussing the prospect of voter intimidation by armed agents and militias, ballots being seized by armed forces in the wee hours of the night, or federal imposition of martial law against people protesting a stolen election. But this is America today. Only through our collective action can we avoid this fate.