The Election is in Trouble --- You Can be a Hero!

I realize that I have a tendency to be a bit gloomy on this site.  But to be perfectly honest, I only blog when I feel the country is headed in the wrong direction (you'll note that I began this blog on March 13, 2016).

But this is a happy post!  Or at least, a hopeful one!

As you likely know if you've been paying any attention at all, the election on November 3 is likely to be a real mess (to put it politely).  We have no way of knowing how bad the pandemic will be by then, but given the complete vacuum of national leadership, it's fair to assume: REALLY bad.  Which means fewer people will be voting in person, which means you should really register to vote by mail and send in your vote as soon as possible.  Like, I mean, now.

Yes, now.  Go ahead and do it.  I'll wait.

Great!  There's one less thing to worry about.  So now that we've taken care of you, let's focus on getting other people to vote.

One thing that needs to happen is we need to get people to go vote.  And sure, people should be voting early by mail where they can, but there are a lot of people who don't have that option, and/or people who wait to the last minute, and/or people who don't ordinarily vote.  And we need to reach them.

And that's where Vote Forward comes in.

Vote Forward has done the work to identify people who are likely to vote for sane candidates (wink, wink), but who might not take the time to vote, and put their contact information in a database.  Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to 'adopt' 5 or 20 (or 100 or 200 or --- but no more than 20 at a time) of those likely non-voters, and send them a friendly letter in the US Post telling them why you vote in every election, and urging them to do the same.

One thing about Vote Forward is, it's technically non-partisan.  You are asked not to name any specific candidate or party in your letters --- I'm guessing due to regulations about in-kind contributions from the FEC.  So you talk about civic duty and what not (my line is "I won't let other people decide who's in charge of my state and my country"), but the key partisan edge is, as I said before, Vote Forward thinks they've identified the right people to send letters to.

And they claim that these letters improve turnout by 3% or more.  Which is actually pretty huge, if you think about it.

Of course, getting voters to the polls is only part of the equation.  We also need people working at the poll sites on election day.  And as you may be aware, poll workers tend to be retirees, who tend to be older and, crucially, at higher risk from the coronavirus.  So another thing you can do to help is to volunteer to be a poll worker (in some states, you'll even get paid!).  That will help insure that everyone who wants to cast a vote gets the opportunity to do so.

Only 100 days left!  Let's do this!