#voter outreach

[jomiddlemarch]

I remember you mentioning at some point that you participate in an initiative to write postcards to voters. Any advice for someone who wants to participate? I looked at Swing Blue Alliance but absolutely cannot become an organizer while working three jobs. Wondering if there is a way to help by writing without organizing?

Great question and the short answer is, yes, you can simply write postcards, no organizing needed!

Blue Wave Postcards will send you batches of 100, 200, 2000 at different price points. They require a short written message and supply the postcards and they are one of the only ones to include address label stickers. You supply postcards stamps. They are here: https://shop.bluewavepostcards.org/

Postcards to Voters will send you a longer message and addresses in batches of 5, 10, 20, etc. You supply the postcard and stamps. They are here: https://postcardstovoters.org/

The Civics Center does letters/postcards, focusing on youth outreach. With postcards, they usually send them to you, along with addresses. You write their message and supply the stamps. They are here: https://www.thecivicscenter.org/volunteer#postcards

Activate America has numerous postcard campaigns. You tell them how many postcards you want to write and they supply the addresses and the message. You supply the card and stamp. They are here: https://www.activateamerica.vote/postcards

Postcards to Swing States is no longer supplying postcards, but has a link to a place to buy ones. They supply the message and the addresses. They are targeting VA, LA, and KY right now. They are found here: https://www.turnoutpac.org/postcards/

Pretty much all of these places will have stamp funds, if you want to write but the cost of stamps is prohibitive. You can also donate to stamp funds instead of writing, if writing is hard. You can write solo or in groups. I prefer to use colored markers to write the messages, so it's clear a human being was on the other end.

Postcarding mutuals like @tessa-quayle and @fericita-s feel free to weigh in!

#postcards to voters #voter outreach #cozy activism #kitchen table activism #kids and teens can help #donating to stamp funds is also helpful #save democracy #one postcard at a time #feel free to reblog!

[gwydionmisha]

#Stay #Florida #Voter Outreach #NAACP #News

[gruffmcgrimedog]

if I'm having dinner with u ...and u pull out a wit which or a with whom I will think u probs use ur college education to look down on others. accessible language is... nicer considering how much of the even the US is illiterate and/or not college educated. it's literally such a barrier....esp b/w ppl of voting age dear God. anyways I don't trust ppl who, in their free time, use perfect grammar....ehhh. I only use punctuation for....artistic emphasis....

#an uninformed voter is so scary #i was thinking abt that in the shower earlier #its one thing to vote your party #its another to believe YouTube propaganda and decide their beliefs that way #anyways i was gonna apply to a job w the state #in voter outreach and education #and i guess i rly care lol

[don-lichterman]

Evangelical political activists push Hispanic, Black voter outreach as ‘game-changer’ in the midterms and 2024

Evangelical political activists push Hispanic, Black voter outreach as ‘game-changer’ in the midterms and 2024

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! NASHVILLE – Alveda King, a Trump supporter and niece Martin Luther King Jr., told a crowd of Christian political activists Saturday — the weekend of Father’s Day and Juneteenth — that it is the Democrats who seek to divide and separate Americans by skin color.  Since 2020, several primary and special elections have shown a shift in the Hispanic voting…

View On WordPress

#activists #Black #Evangelical #GameChanger #Hispanic #midterms #Outreach #political #push #Voter

[socialistexan]

I see Clinton is sharp as ever on campaign voter outreach just like she was in 2016. Worked so well back then, right?

[mariacallous]

Ahead of the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, a liberal Gen-Z-led group has purchased a handful of domain names related to the top Republican primary candidates in an effort to extinguish support from young voters.

“Republicans are not investing in outreach to young people, and we know why,” Jessica Siles, deputy press secretary for Voters of Tomorrow, said in a statement to WIRED on Friday. “Their regressive, radical stances on abortion rights, guns, climate change, and other top issues are overwhelmingly unpopular with Gen Z. Since Trump and Haley won’t accurately inform young people of their views, we will.”

Voters for Tomorrow has bought up new domain names—GenZforTrump.org and GenZforHaley.org—in an effort to sway young voters in battleground states from backing Republicans in the 2024 election. The websites will redirect to another site, GenZvsFarRight.org, which the group says will outline how “out-of-touch” the GOP’s platform is with the needs of young voters. On the redirected site, the group outlines Trump and Haley’s records on the environment, LGBTQ+ rights, and gun safety, among other issues, without explicitly encouraging people to vote for Biden.

To reach them, the group is launching a digital ad campaign across Instagram and Snapchat, hoping to reach at least half a million users in battleground states where they say the youth vote could make a difference for Democrats. “Gen Z will determine our next president,” the ads say, as they ask users to visit the websites for more information on Trump and Haley. Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Arizona, and Florida are some of the states where these ads will run, and the group plans to spend as much as it takes to reach at least half a million voters, Jack Lobel, Voters of Tomorrow's 19-year-old national press secretary, told WIRED on Friday.

For nearly a decade, domain trolling, or the act of buying up URLs related to an opposing candidate and redirecting them to unfavorable information, has become a popular digital media tactic for campaigns. In 2015, Senator Ted Cruz and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina had domains related to their GOP presidential campaigns swiped up by trolls before they were able to grab them. CarlyFiorina.org, at one point, displayed 30,000 sad-faced emojis to represent the workers she laid off at HP. In 2020, the Biden campaign bought KeepAmericaGreat.com, the Trump campaign’s reelection slogan, attacking Trump’s handling of the pandemic.

“P.S., If the GOP candidates had invested in young voter outreach efforts like we are, maybe we wouldn’t have acquired these website domains in the first place,” stated Voters of Tomorrow’s press release.

It’s impossible to know whether these domain trolls have the power to sway voter sentiment. But Voters of Tomorrow thinks they do. “Trump is the greatest threat to our generation, and we’re going to continue to expand that belief in our generation throughout this project because the stakes of the 2024 election are unprecedented,” Lobel said.

In 2020, young people came out to vote in record numbers and arguably helped turn the election in Biden’s favor. But a recent poll from the Harvard Kennedy School has shown that the same demographic appears less likely to vote in 2024 than in the prior presidential election, declining from 57 percent to 49 percent. The poll reported that a plurality of these voters distrust Biden and Trump to act on critical issues like climate change, gun violence, and health care, which could dampen their desire to vote in this year’s election. Those same voters said Trump was the better choice to address the current crisis in Gaza over Biden by 5 percentage points.

These numbers could spell trouble for Biden and the Democrats come November. Around 41 million Gen-Z voters will be eligible to vote for the first time in 2024, according to Tufts University. Of those voters, more than 8 million of them will be first-time voters, and could play an outsize role in electing the next president.

“Young voters have historically been left out of the political process, and that changed with the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Young voters realized their power. And since then, we’ve been showing up in droves to shape elections,” Lobel told WIRED. “Going into 2024, we have to build on that power.”

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

The Republikkkans have been covertly funding minor 3rd party candidates for decades. The RepubliKKKlans are a vocal “numerical MINORITY.” To be successful, which they are more often than the Dems, they must pull out all the stops and do everything possible to siphon votes away from the Dems. They suppress black votes, or any group or geographic region which tends to lean blue. They also fund the “my vote doesn’t matter” and “both parties are the same” propaganda that keeps people who would have other wise voted blue from voting at all. At the local level the often fund someone with a similar name to their Dem rival. They encourage Kanye in the hopes of diverting black votes and they are pushing RFK junior in the hopes of diverting uniformed Dems. RFK Jr is the black sheep of the family and shares No Democratic values with his strongly Democratic family but many people don’t know that.

Putin and the GOP oligarchs channeled money into Jill Stein in 2016 and again this year. The Green Party always siphons off votes from the Dems since they both support the same ideals. The “Bernie or Bust” movement was pushed heavily by oligarch political operatives to siphon off first time voters from Hilary. Many of those voters didn’t understand the primary process where you first vote the person who most represents you before rallying around the party in the general election. A low-level Republican operative even claims to have started the Bernie or Bust movement although this is debatable.

Ralph Nader has said that had he known he would cost Dem Al Gore the win in 2000 that he would not have run. That blunder doomed us to two terms of dumb ass George “Dubya” Bush/Darth Cheney, which in many ways was worse than Trump. Those two clowns (Cheney was literally the shadow president) gave us the forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those wars turned the entire Muslim world against us and strained relations with our NATO allies, cost us trillions, led to tens of thousands of American soldiers being killed or maimed, and raised the deficit to unheard of levels. They also caused two energy crises,one before 9/11 and one after Katrina, that led to record high gas prices that were higher than pandemic levels in many parts of the country. They also allowed a major city, New Orleans, to be wiped off the map and forcibly relocated its residents its poor and minority communities across the country at gun point.

Republikkkans win because they always vote as a solid block in every single election and they do it as if their very lives depended on it. Now some might rebut this by bringing up the Libertarian Party. This lunatic fringe party is basically the same as the Republicans. Most of them in the general election will end up voting GOP but an insignificant number spread out nationwide.

The Dems need to stop trying to claim every single group out their and desperately need to help recreate their union base which Republicans, starting with Reagan, have been killing off. The Dems claim both the Jewish and Muslim people but both groups largely vote Republican. The Dems try to claim all immigrant groups but many don’t vote, aren’t citizens yet, or lean to the autocratic Republican Party because it reminds them of the strongmen of their home countries. The Hispanics are claimed by the Dems but fully one third of them are registered Republicans with the rest going either way. How many elections have the south Florida Cubans cost us with their unyielding support of Republicans wanting to endlessly punish the Castro brothers in Cuba?

The left needs to realize the Hispanics are not a solid block and need to launch a massive outreach program to those who could be swayed left. A disproportionate number of Hispanics are white or white passing and heavily favor the racist Republicans. The letting go of unions and the failure to recruit Hispanics are the two biggest ongoing mistakes of the Dems. But the Dems aren’t as organized or as well funded as the GOP which has unlimited dark money from neo-Nazi autocrats. The legions of dumb ass Evangelicals and racist alt-right groups also help in bringing the Dems down and that’s something else entirely that needs to be addressed. We can’t win playing the game of division. We need to win over voters in massive numbers and do it asap. Dem leadership needs to convince the rank and file that the GOP only supports the wealthy, the religious fringe, and the deplorable racists.

#voting #republican assholes

[futileexercise]

🤦‍♂️

[jomiddlemarch]

“Democracies die by foreign invasion, but they also die by homegrown authoritarian malignancies. That is happening now in the United States, and Writers for Democratic Action calls on YOU to stop it!  Join us in protecting representative government with the most powerful weapon we still have: the Vote. 

WDA is launching BOOK THE VOTE, a drive to bring together readers, writers, booksellers, publishers, and librarians to register voters before the 2022 elections. Books themselves are threatened now, which is no surprise since books have always been essential to democracy. The Bookstore and the Library can be the frontline of the campaign to rescue it.”

#writers for democratic action #book the vote #booklr #librarians #bookstores #voter outreach #get out the vote #readers and writers #us politics #share widely

[southeastasianists]

There was a time when Prabowo Subianto's name would have spooked most Indonesians.

But now young voters appear to be charmed by the defence minister's slick makeover. The fiery ex-special forces commander dogged by allegations of human rights abuses and disappearances has become a cute grandfather made for memes.

"He is much older, but he is able to embrace my generation," says a 25-year-old supporter of his, Albert Joshua.

Now 72, Mr Prabowo is running to succeed the popular Joko Widodo when the world's third-largest democracy votes on 14 February. He is promising more of the stability and economic development Mr Widodo, or Jokowi as he is better known, pushed during his decade in power.

So far the polls put Mr Prabowo ahead of his younger rivals, Ganjar Pranowo and Anies Baswedan. Both men are in their 50s and have experience running key Indonesian provinces as governors. Job security, infrastructure and a bigger diplomatic role for Indonesia dominate their campaigns.

Mr Prabowo's running mate is Mr Widodo's eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka. It's a choice that many see as a tacit blessing by the president, who is yet to endorse anyone, including his own party's candidate, Mr Pranowo.

But a Prabowo presidency is also alarming to many, who say he has never been held accountable for the alleged abduction and killing of pro-democracy student activists decades ago.

A young voter, who did not wish to be named, says she is "terrified" he will win: "If he could be an accomplice of silencing voices then he will be silencing those voices now if he gets elected."

"Cuteness" hardly makes an eligible leader, she says. "If that's how you think a leader should be, then you should elect kittens."

Indonesia's cat-loving 'gemoy squad'

Cats are also a part of Mr Prabowo's social media campaign. His brown and white stray, Bobby, has his own well-curated Instagram account that describes him as a "patriot".

Then there are the TikTok videos of Mr Prabowo doing his signature move - an awkward shuffle across the stage - or shooting hearts at the audience. The gushing response has dubbed him "gemoy", a moniker for all things cuddly and adorable. His young supporters call themselves the "gemoy squad".

Social media has been the cornerstone of his outreach. Millennials and Gen Z make up more than half of Indonesia's 205 million eligible voters - they also account for many of the 167 million Indonesians who use social media.

Mr Prabowo's official Facebook and affiliated accounts spent $144,000 in advertising over the past three months, according to Meta's data. That's almost double Mr Pranowo's spend, and triple that of Mr Baswedan.

"I rarely see Prabowo's real picture anymore," said Yoes C Kenawas, a research fellow at Atma Jaya University.

Instead the internet, drawing rooms and streets are filled with posters of Mr Prabowo as a chubby cartoon character. This new "avatar... is all over Indonesia", Mr Kenawas says. "That's how they're softening his image. And so far, it's pretty successful."

A spokesperson for Mr Prabowo's campaign said they were just trying to attract young people through a "fun" campaign: "Politics can be conveyed through different methods... that's not a bad thing," Dedek Prayudi told the BBC.

Gen Z voter Rahayu Sartika Dewi says she is drawn to Mr Prabowo's plans to develop the renewable energy and farming sectors. She calls the campaign "very cute, fun and approachable... not too heavy like in previous years".

Mr Prabowo ran for president, and lost, in 2014 and 2019. But this campaign has been remarkably different.

"The logic is that Prabowo's losses were, at least in part, because his strongman image and firebrand style alienated parts of the electorate," says Dr Eve Warburton, director of the Australia National University's Indonesia Institute.

Mr Prabowo is also targeting a generation that has no memory of the time when he rose to the peak of his power. That happened during the dictatorship of General Suharto, who was forced from office in 1998. His 32-year reign, which many Indonesians credit with modernising the country, was also a time of brutal repression and bloodshed.

Twenty-five years on, young voters say they would rather judge Mr Prabowo on how he tackles unemployment and cost of living. He has promised to create 19 million new jobs over the next five years.

"I know activists are still speaking out... but we have to move on," Mr Joshua says.

Mr Prabowo's campaign has denied the allegations, although he was dismissed from the military for his alleged role in the activists' disappearance. In 2014 he told Al Jazeera that he had ordered their kidnapping but had only done so on the orders of superiors.

In recent months videos have been showing up of people in tears, expressing their sympathy for him, claiming he had been "victimised by his opponents". They often feature young people, and some election watchers doubt if these are genuine supporters.

Ms Dewi says his presidential nomination is "proof" that he has shaken off the allegations.

An extraordinary comeback

Mr Prabowo was born into a wealthy political family, the son of a renowned economist who served in the Indonesian cabinet.

He followed his father who left the country in 1957 under a cloud of controversy, and spent a decade of his childhood in exile in Europe.

After returning home, he joined the army and quickly moved up the ranks to become the captain of Indonesia's elite special forces, the Kopassus.

By then he had already been accused of human rights violations in restive East Timor, where he had served as a member of the unit. His exact role in the military operations in East Timor that claimed hundreds of lives has never been proven and he denies the allegations. But the murky blot on his career has stayed.

He married one of Suharto's daughters and remained in the dictator's inner circle. As Suharto's reign crumbled in the late 1990s, the Kopassus was accused of kidnapping more than 20 student activists who opposed the regime. At least a dozen of them are still missing and feared dead. Those who survived have alleged torture.

Mr Prabowo was discharged from the military, went into self-imposed exile in Jordan, made it onto a blacklist in Australia and was banned from travelling to the United States.

But he made a comeback in 2019, when Mr Widodo appointed him as his defence minister, turning the rivals into allies. The surprise move followed a bitter election win - Mr Prabowo blamed his loss on cheating - and violent protests that left eight people dead.

"How can we expect justice if the perpetrator becomes the president?" asks Suciwati, the widow of a prominent human rights lawyer. Munir Said Thalib spent much of his life investigating the 1998 disappearances. He was assassinated in 2004 on a flight. The pilot was found guilty, but Suciwati does not believe that is the full story.

Prabowo's presidency "would be an extraordinary defeat for us, the families of victims, and human rights activists", she says.

Mr Widodo's support has helped restore Mr Prabowo's image, some say. Social media is "not enough", Mr Kenawas adds, and "how the state machineries have supported his campaign... should not be underestimated".

Many point to his running mate and Mr Widodo's son, Mr Gibran. A constitutional court, where Mr Widodo's brother-in-law serves as chief justice, controversially cleared the way for the 36-year-old to run for vice-president - Indonesian law requires him to be older.

What also worries many is a return of the "old Prabowo", known for his hot temper and volatile personality.

Dr Warburton says some of his recent public appearances had hints of that.

"No-one knows how Prabowo will govern," she says. "He may be a very hands-off president most interested in the prestige and pomp of office; but most who know him well emphasise his unpredictable personality. And that's never good for governance."

#Southeast Asia #Indonesia #Prabowo Subianto #Politics #Elections

[homochadensistm]

are there any politicians or political parties in israel that you support? if so what does that support look like? (as in, is it voting, voter outreach, rallies, etc.)

There are singular politicians that I like but unfortunately theyre part of parties filled to the brim with incompetent kleptocrats whom I will never vote for. I appreciate Sharren Haskel, who defected from the Likkud when it stopped being the Likkud and became BBs rimming brigade. I appreciate Merav Michaeli despite disagreeing with her on almost every belief she holds. Shes a principled politician and a strong leader, despite what ppl may think of her post-Labor destruction (which she wasnt the catalyst of, yall r just salty!). Would let her spank me but would not vote for her ever. I LOVED Tzipi Livni and to this day she is the only politician I am willing to actually vote for. Pls come back Tzipi we desperately need you :(

#israel

[inbabylontheywept]

A Boring Non-Fiction Essay On Voting.

I'm going to present this as a little historical walk through. Give me some grace, I'm pretty new to this:

It's 1946, and the WWII is over. Has been for some months. Young people are held in the highest esteem possible. They've defeated an existential threat, been glorified all over the news, and society has decided that it is going to make a concerted effort to thank them.

This effort, combined with the fact that most young people have been putting off having children due to the war, results in the post-war generation giving birth to the largest generation that the US has ever had. Probably ever will have.

This generation is the Boomers.

The Boomers numbers alone would've made them pretty much the dominant force in our democracy, but the Vietnam war cranks this up to 11. This whole batch of young people is informed that they will need to get politically active ASAP, or get blown up across the world fighting a war that nobody understands against people that frankly aren't a threat to us.

Nobody likes politics. They're a dirty, mucky business, but it's better to deal with them than it is to bury friends so they start voting, and then they just never stop. They're a political titan, and everything that can be controlled by voting goes in their favor. This starts around 1960.

Gen-X joins the field in the 1980s, but they're small and it becomes clear right off the bat that their voice is never going to be louder than the Boomers. They find other ways to get heard, and the funnel their resources into those (mostly direct activist approaches in the courts), and it's not the same kind of representation that the Boomers get but it's... something.

Reagan is elected. The world becomes measurably worse.

The Millennials join the scene around the year 2000. They outnumber the Boomers by a very, very small margin, but... there's a handful of things against them.

First, they have no idea how to organize. No alive one does. The Boomers are glued together with vague self-interest, and the democrats have been moving their interests through non-democratic channels for forty plus years now. Those muscles are atrophied.

Second, they, like all young people, are resistant to getting politically involved. There is no literal gun to their heads like there was for the Boomers.

They shoot their shot. It does not work. It probably never could. The Democrats finally have the numbers to theoretically win, but theoretical numbers and turnout are different things, and the stakes just aren't the same without death on the line. That's a good thing, but it puts off change for another generational cycle.

Now we are in 2020. The Boomers have been defacto the only voice that matters in politics for sixty years. The Republican party has not bothered to do youth outreach in any real sense since 1980. As a matter of fact, they have doubled down on the Boomers, shed as much young blood as they needed to get their old voters out in the booths.

It worked in 2016 with Trump. This was a devil's deal. The party's future was grim from the start, but Trump couldn't tolerate any threat to his "leadership", so he took the head of any up and coming political figures. He killed off the generation of princelings in training by humiliating them in front of the party during the debates, and now they have literally no one to run but him. The only people spared from this extinction event were holed away in quiet corners: Random governors, state level reps, quiet non-apparatus type individuals who have no ability to actually run the machine.

They tried this again in 2020, and it did not work. The Boomers are, finally, dying off. They've been at almost peak activation since 1970, there's just not a whole lot more that could be drawn from them, and with the youngest Boomers being 58, and the oldest being 76... They've hit their zenith and are now going extinct entirely through natural mechanisms.

And thus begins my actual argument: If I were to vote against the Boomers in 1980, I think I would've been wasting my time fighting a battle that I never had the manpower to win. It would have been doing a futile action solely the moral exercise of saying "I tried." I do not believe in the value of such actions. If I were voting against the Boomers in the 2000s, I would have been attempting a battle that could have, possibly, maybe been won, but would have taken a brilliant strategy. No brilliant strategy ever came. I personally hold that in that time, the best use of time was to organize people as preparation while still mostly moving through courts to get actions done. Voting was not really a winning strategy then. Now in the 2020's, the Boomers are dying out. There will never be more of them than there were in 2020, and there weren't enough of them then. The well is tapped. We are no longer up against overwhelming force. They are dying.

And so, for the first time in 40 years, I think that the best bang for my buck is in voting. Not because I hold great stock in voting as a civic duty, not because I think that voting is a moral thing, but because the situation has changed. Voting is so easy, and the value of it, right now, is so high, that it just makes tactical sense. I'm not going to harangue anyone on this. I'm not entirely sure that this is a great idea myself, I'm an engineer, not a poli-sci major, but I know my demographic data and the last five years have been a watershed moment. I think there's a good case for this being the time to start voting again. (And I want to point out that the people who have spent the last forty years calling it a waste of time weren't wrong. I just think that things have changed in the relatively recent present.)

#voting #elections #us politics #boomers #gen z #Jumping on landmines for fun and pleasure #Please don't bite my head off #thanks for reading

[nokingsonlyfooles]

“It’s my hope, Mr. President, that you listen to us, that you choose democracy over tyranny.” - Abdullah Hammoud, Dearborn Mayor and Voter

YES! I can't fuckin' believe the media accurately reported this as a protest and printed/publicized the words of the voters explaining why they did it. AND NOBODY HAD TO ATTEMPT SUICIDE! This is big and it could get even bigger! But it's a qualified bigness, because...

Walz, a major supporter of Biden’s reelection campaign, said Michigan’s “uncommitted” results were a healthy demonstration of democracy. “I think they feel passionate, as they should, about an issue we all care about,” Walz said, adding that he expected most protest voters would eventually return to Biden’s side in a likely November rematch with former President Donald Trump, who himself has struggled with college-educated voters and suburbanites in his ongoing Republican primary against former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. “I’m much more convinced there’s a chance bringing those folks home is much greater than bringing the ‘Never Trump’ folks back home,” Walz said.

Yeah. I know this song and dance. I've seen it happen in person, at protests, in reatime. They come out to "do voter outreach" and they're all smiles to start. "Yes! Please do continue to act upon your freedom of speech in a way I, an advocate for the status quo, find nonthreatening. Your feelings are valid, ha-ha! I expect nothing to change, and indeed I will act to change nothing, but good for you!" A few folks always believe the message has been received and quiet down, that's why they do it. But wait and see what happens to that smile when a few people start interrupting and yelling, "THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH!"

At least this guy's willing to suggest Biden would pick up more votes by moving left than moving right, although I doubt he actually expects anything radical. A few more forgiven student loans or somewhat cheaper drugs aren't much of a problem, and that's leftist too! So we don't really have to worry about the ongoing genocide.

The thing is, if/when this picks up momentum and the DNC starts to think they might have to change something or lose, it will become something other than a positive demonstration of free speech. It'll be childish tantrum-throwing, pointless, uncivil, attention-whoring, astroturfed, counterproductive foreign interference, and whatever else sounds bad. If any of you out there in internet-land already feel threatened by it, you're probably saying that right now. (Go ahead and comment, you'll boost this with other people who think like you, and I might change some minds.)

And, if you are comfortable with it and want voters to do it instead of threatening to withhold votes from Biden in the general, check your privilege. Not every state offers this. Unless something changes real fast (at least, I THINK it hasn't changed, it's hard to do a search when "uncommitted" brings up SO MANY news articles about Michigan 😁), mine won't. I can't do this. I can't vote in a third party primary either. It'd be all blue or nothing. And neither of those things will get me any press, so I gotta keep talking. Maybe I'll motivate someone who can vote uncommitted! Or scare a politician! I still think I'm doing more good by staying alive, and I'm a bit distant from any property I might meaningfully damage (although I am open to suggestions that won't get me arrested and silenced), so this is the only thing I got that won't injure a human being.

Tumblr, no matter how you actually intend to vote, if you're not up for living in a two-party system where both parties think they can do a little genocide and stay in power, you have ways of making yourself heard. There are options beyond falling in line behind the lesser evil. Don't let anyone tell you there aren't. And when you start hearing "stop!" or "you can't!" that means you have something they want. A cessation of hostilities! Well, now you might be in a position to negotiate terms! Don't give up!

Please, please, please don't give up. There is so much to be done.

#us news #us elections #michigan primary #protest votes #protest #democracy #democrats #democratic party #palestine #genocide #resist #nonviolent resistance #uncommitted

[thebemoon]

My Dramione Evil Author Story "A Clock With No Numbers" has been updated! Hermione boards the Knight Bus, with Harry, Thana and a photographer in tow.

CHAPTER 16: "Voter Outreach On The Knight Bus"

Excerpt:

Hermione smiled at the elderly, hag-like passenger opposite her.

“Hello,” Hermione said. “I’m Doctor Hermione Granger and I’m running for Minister for Magic.”

“I never vote,” the witch snapped. “They curse the ballots.”

“Excuse me,” Harry said. “I’m Head Auror, and there is no proof that election ballots are cursed.”

“You don’t have proof they’re NOT cursed, either,” the witch insisted. “My Edgar voted in the ’95 election. Died the next day.”

“Probably voted for the wrong candidate,” the photographer joked.

“Do not make light of Death,” Thana said in funereal tones. “It casts its ballot upon us all.”

#dramione

[kp777]

By Brian Kahn

The Guardian

March 25, 2023

From the article:

Stacey Abrams has been hailed as a masterly community organizer, after she helped turn out the voters that secured two Senate seats for Democrats in once solidly red Georgia. She has also run twice – unsuccessfully – for state governor. For her next move, she’s not focusing on electoral power so much as power itself.

Recently she left the world of campaign politics and took a job as senior counsel for the non-profit Rewiring America. Her role will focus on helping thousands of people across America wean their homes and businesses off fossil fuels and on to electricity, at a moment when scientists have given a “final warning” about the need to curb greenhouse gas emissions and prevent global catastrophe.

“We are at an inflection point where we can choose to electrify,” she said in an interview. “We don’t have to do it everywhere, all at once. If you want to see what the future looks like, we start building it here and now.”

The impetus for her role comes from significant moves taken by the Biden administration. When he signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) last year, President Joe Biden hailed it as “the biggest step forward on climate ever”. It includes a sprawling array of tax credits, rebates and other incentives to help people electrify their lives.

“The government has basically filled a bank account for you with thousands of dollars that will help you go electric,” Abrams said.

Her mission is to help people access that so-called bank account.

“You can improve your indoor air quality, make cooking quick and easy, make being cool in the summer and warm in the winter, and be more affordable,” Abrams said. “But we have to talk about it.”

Abrams is perhaps best known for registering 800,000 voters in Georgia through her voting rights advocacy organization Fair Fight Action. She wants to use a similar playbook with electrification, and doing so could benefit many of the same people whose voices risked going unheard in elections.

‘You meet people where they are, not where you want them to be’: Stacey Abrams. Photograph: Erik S Lesser/EPA

But figuring out what incentives you qualify for and how to access them can be involved, to say the least. While Rewiring America has a calculator that lets individuals suss out what IRA benefits they can snag, Abrams will be taking that and other tools to the community level. She highlighted how houses of worship could be prime places to talk about the IRA and a potential target for outreach.

And she hopes to work with local leaders such as teachers, mayors and city council members to make the IRA a kitchen table issue. Enlisting them will, she hopes, eventually lead to neighbors talking to neighbors about how much money they saved on a new induction stove or how much more comfortable their home was during a heatwave thanks to a newly installed heat pump.

“You meet people where they are, not where you want them to be,” she said. “That means understanding the lives they’re living and the questions they have and who they go to to talk about their questions.”

While the IRA has the potential to be transformative, it’s also not enough to electrify every household in the country. The law has billions set aside for home upgrades, but more resources will be needed to achieve the Biden administration’s goal of reducing US emissions up to 52% below 2005 levels by the end of the decade.

An analysis by the Rhodium Group found the law has the potential to cut emissions by up to 42%. And that it could reduce home energy bills by $717 to $1,146 by 2030.

Abrams said that, based on her experience in the arena of voting rights, the prospect of such benefits could help foster an electrification movement. “As people get more, they expect more,” she said. “The most sustainable movement is when people expect more and are willing to work for more.”

This isn’t Abrams’ first foray into climate. She was quick to point out her college senior thesis was on environmental justice and that she interned with the Environmental Protection Agency. During her tenure in the Georgia house of representatives, she also worked as minority leader to help pass a bill that included the state’s biggest influx of cash for public transportation.

Ultimately, the Biden administration wants the US to reach net zero by mid-century. It might be hard to imagine that occurring – a distant future, when perhaps technologies that are only nascent today like carbon dioxide removal will be more widespread, almost every car and home will be electric, and the inequalities targeted by the IRA and Biden’s executive orders will have dwindled.

That scenario can read a bit like science fiction – a genre of which Abrams is a well-known fan.

“In almost every sci-fi story, it begins with what decisions people are making long before the story takes place,” she said.

#stacey abrams #rewiring america #inflation reduction act #climate change