Tag Archives: voter registration

An Extra Message–And An Ask

Apologies for cluttering your in-boxes, but we have only three months until the election, and I wanted to share this important message from Hoosiers for Democracy– a grass-roots movement founded to combat voter lethargy and encourage turnout by Indiana’s Democrats.

Here’s the request I received last night. I hope you will consider making a donation. Even small amounts help!!

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Dear friends and colleagues,

Rachel, Barbara and I are thrilled about how Hoosiers for Democracy is growing and the impact it is having on educating voters as well as empowering them to act in service of preserving our hard won freedoms and resisting extremism. Our subscription list is growing, and we are expanding our network of allies across the state that help us amplify our message.  After we publish a post, we immediately get emails from campaign managers and other grass root movements asking us to be sure to include them in our next post in our “What You Can Do” section.  We are living proof that “all that rises must converge”.

We are contacting you today with an urgent request for support of a new initiative we have started focused on registering Indiana Gen Z voters, especially targeting districts that have been identified as flippable. We have 60 days to get this done.  We are emboldened by the new sense of hopefulness about the upcoming election, including the recent surge in excitement, donations, and volunteers in Indiana and across the country. Much of this surge is occurring among the younger voter population, but if past trends continue, Indiana likely still has a problem engaging younger voters. Despite some progress being made nationally towards increasing younger voter turnout in the 2020 general and 2022 midterm elections, data suggests that Hoosiers still have a lot of work to do in educating youth and young adults about the potential impacts of voting and civic engagement on their own futures and on the lives of future generations. We have decided to be a part of a solution to this issue. Our friend, colleague and expert on civic engagement, Dona Sapp, has joined with H4D in developing a targeted and strategic 60-day campaign to register young voters in Indiana.  This campaign is influenced by and in response to disheartening data:

  • Indiana voter participation is consistently among the lowest in the nation. In 2020, Indiana ranked 46th among all U.S. states for eligible voters of all ages who voted.
  • More specifically related to young voter participation, we ranked 44th for the percentage of eligible 18–24-year-olds who were registered to vote and 43rd for the percentage of 18–24-year-olds who voted in 2020.
  • Only 48 percent of eligible 18-24-year-olds in Indiana were registered to vote in 2020, and only 39 percent voted. In contrast, 87 percent of eligible 18–24-year-olds in New Jersey were registered, and 75 percent voted.

It is true that, historically, younger voters are less likely to vote in U.S. elections than other age groups, but this is particularly true in Indiana. There are many varied and valid reasons for this.  Experts tell us that young voters are passionate about issues that impact them, yet many are disillusioned with the democratic process. This is particularly true in black and multiracial communities and among young people who did not attend college.

Two more sobering and heartbreaking stats:

  • Among the 65 percent of registered Indiana voters who voted, Donald Trump received 1,729,519 million votes and Joe Biden received 1,242,416 million votes, a difference of approximately 487,000 votes.
  • An estimated 500,000+ eligible 18–24-year-old Hoosiers are not currently registered to vote. This means that younger voters, who often feel unheard and powerless to change anything, could have changed the result of the 2020 presidential election in Indiana through increased voter registration and participation

But the past two weeks have changed things.  Young people are engaged, and motivated and using their creativity and their culture to impact this election.  We need your help in making sure Indiana young people are registered to vote and get them to the ballot box!

Our 60-day Voting is Your Superpower Campaign is focused on registering eligible Gen Z voters.  Dona has designed iPhone stickers (this idea came from Senator Andrea Hunley when we pitched this idea to her), flyers, cards, yard signs, and t-shirts.  We are partnering with our allies including several Democratic party county/district managers and most of the Democratic candidates on the Indiana ballot to help us distribute the resources in strategic sites/venues across the state.  Our goal is to register 25,000 young people and get a pledge from each of them to register 5 of their peers. Additionally, we will invite volunteers in our next post to help us in statewide distribution. We have a great online form for easy registering and tracking recruits from our substack platform. The ‘swag’ includes a QR code for immediate voter registration.

We have volunteers and vendors at the ready, but we need your financial support.  We developed a budget for the materials and are asking for any support that you may be able to give so we can order these immediately and have them ready for distribution.  Based on how much we can raise in the immediate term, we will strategically order the resource we think will make the most impact for distribution.  Timing is of the essence.

We just got an email from Boone County Dems that they are ready to distribute at some key events and are spreading the word.

We are also in discussions with several campaign representatives in flippable districts who are excited to participate. Additionally, because of Dona’s extensive connections with Indiana schools, teachers and students from several of the high schools in the targeted districts have indicated their willingness to get to work on our campaign, including talking about voter registration in the morning announcements.  We have the organization, volunteers, tools and enthusiasm needed to make this campaign a big success. Now, we need the funding to put our plan into action and maximize the impact over the next 60 days.

If you can help, please reply to Deborah Asberry <[email protected]>and let us know the amount that you are able to donate so we can monitor the progress.  If you know of another person who would be interested in helping us in this endeavor, please forward this information to them, but let us know whom you reached out to.  No amount is too small.  We trust we can immediately raise enough to get us started in printing and distributing.

Let’s do this!  Thank you in advance.

Debbie Asberry, Rachel Thelin, Babara Burke, & Dona Sapp

Yours in democracy,

Debbie, Rachel and Barbara

https://hoosiersfordemocracy.substack.com

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November Danger Signal

There is nothing that makes my heart drop down to my knees more quickly than a headline that reads “Trump Gets Some Good Election News.” But that was a Politico headline a week or so ago, and it was and is very troubling.

Late last month, the Democratic data firm TargetSmart found that while new voter registrations had plummeted amid the coronavirus pandemic, those who were registering in competitive states tended to be whiter, older and less Democratic than before.

When he saw the numbers, Ben Wessel, executive director of NextGen America, said he “got nervous,” and other Democratic-leaning groups felt the same.

The report seemed to confirm what state elections officials and voter registration groups had been seeing in the field for weeks: Neither Democrats nor Republicans had been registering many voters during the pandemic. But Democrats were suffering disproportionately from the slowdown.

Unlike countries like Australia, America doesn’t have mandatory voting. If U.S. voters want to ignore the political process, if we want to leave the outcome up to those most passionate about it, if we just don’t care and want to stay home, we can. One of the reasons polls can so often be misleading is that pollsters have to make educated guesses about who will actually show up on election day.

Unlike a lot of countries, America doesn’t have a national agency that administers federal elections, either. Election day isn’t a national holiday–it isn’t even on a weekend–and very few states have made it easier, rather than harder, to register and vote. Add to that the GOP’s determination to use every suppression method it can muster–including some recent “enthusiastic” purges of the voter registration rolls– and the fact that a substantial majority of Americans want Donald Trump and the GOP defeated becomes irrelevant.

As one political observer puts it, “The electoral dynamics have already hardened. Donald Trump will lose if everyone who wants to vote can. His remaining hope is to choose his own electorate.”

In our system, what matters isn’t what a majority of Americans think or want. What matters is who shows up.  

November has always been about turnout. Democrats need to turn out a blue wave–a blue tsunami–if voters are going to decisively defeat Trumpism. Whatever happens in the wake of such a defeat–further erosion and ultimate disappearance of the cult that was once the GOP, or a thorough housecleaning by the sane remnant–is less important than the decisiveness with which we defeat the corrupt and traitorous cabal that currently controls the White House and the Senate.

That tsunami cannot happen if Democratic registrations lag.

We know that Trump’s cult will show up at the polls. If rational Americans don’t register and vote in numbers sufficient to overwhelm them, we can kiss America goodby.

As Politico concluded:

The months-long lull in registration, at a minimum, has added an additional measure of uncertainty to the fall campaign, muddying the likely composition of the electorate. In some areas of the country, a swing of even several hundred voters could tilt the registration balance on Election Day.

Ask everyone you know whether they are registered. If they aren’t–or don’t know–get them registered. In Indiana, you–and they–can check whether they are registered by going here.

We can’t afford to let the polls lull us into false complacency. Again.

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Why Can’t We Be More Like Oregon?

As I’ve previously noted, early in the session, Indiana’s legislature moved quickly to kill a bill that would have kept our polling places open for two extra hours. (Indiana’s polls are the nation’s earliest to close). It was just one more effort to suppress the votes of people–mostly elderly, working poor and/or black–who might vote for the “wrong” party.

If we really wanted our citizens to vote (“we” clearly don’t), we’d take a leaf from Oregon’s book.

Call it “motor voter” on steroids.

New legislation signed into law today in Oregon paves the way for the state to one day have close to 100% voter registration. The new law takes the federal “motor voter” law to new levels and registers a person to vote when they obtain or renew a state driver’s license or ID – and it’s partially retroactive.

The law dictates that once residents interact with the state DMV – whether to get a license or ID for the first time, or renew an existing one – they’ll become registered to vote if they aren’t already. The registration will be provisional for 21 days, during which time applicants will be notified of their new status and be given a chance to become affiliated with a political party or to opt-out of the voting process altogether. In essence, Oregon will now be the first state to approach voting with an “opt-out” mindset, as opposed to “opt-in.”

I’ve written before about the virtues of Oregon’s vote by mail system, which is not only convenient, but allows time for thoughtful consideration of ballot choices. Every registered voter is automatically sent a ballot about two weeks before Election Day, and can either mail their ballots back or return them in person.

According to the Oregonian, 

Because of Oregon’s careful signature verification process, fraud and other electoral mischief are virtually nil.

Recounts in extremely close races are based on paper ballots of every vote — not receipts or electronic voting machines. So there’s no danger in Oregon of software hackers casting ersatz votes by the thousands — not to mention no electricity to operate electronic voting machines or impassable roads and polling places 3 feet underwater.

In the 2014 midterm election, 53.5% of Oregon’s registered voters actually voted. The state was fifth in voter turnout. 

Indiana was dead last. Gee–I wonder why.

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