Fighting the sense that nothing will make a difference. Claim your rights.
“In Unity There is Strength”
In the wake of the Voting Rights Act, these voter crusades were nonpartisan efforts to increase voter registration and education. Instead of endorsing candidates, the campaigns sought to increase Black citizens’ sense of empowerment, and encourage participation in the democratic process.
““The power of the people is at the Ballot Box –Vote.”
Top image: SCLC pamphlet courtesy Social Welfare History Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries
Bottom image: Crusade for Voters pamphlet courtesy Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries
In 1930, Eastern Air Transport’s inaugural New York-to-Richmond, Va., air service touched down in Baltimore. The drop off was at Logan Field, shown above, which today is the location of a shopping center. The first day of service transported 21 passengers to stops that also included Philadelphia and Washington. (Robert Kniesche, Baltimore Sun photo, 1939)
1587: Virginia Dare became the first child of English parents to be born on American soil, on what is now Roanoke Island, N.C.
1920: Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment, which guaranteed the right of American women to vote.
1958: The novel “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov was published.
1963: James Meredith became the first African-American to graduate from the University of Mississippi.
Minnesota Senate President Sandy Pappas writes about the ways in which the fight for voting rights, sensible campaign finance laws, and collective bargaining are all connected.
Day 25 of Black History Month and I’m honoring the incredible Stacey Abrams. She is an American politician, lawyer, voting rights activist, and author who served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017, serving as minority leader from 2011 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Abrams founded Fair Fight Action, an organization to address voter suppression, in 2018. Her efforts have been widely credited with boosting voter turnout in Georgia, including in the 2020 presidential election, where Joe Biden won the state, and in Georgia’s 2020–21 U.S. Senate election and special election, which gave Democrats control over the Senate. In 2021, Abrams was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts in the 2020 election
Keep thinking about this. It means that the people who receive SSDI can literally NEVER be a part of the group legislating the program. I feel genuinely sick to my stomach…because like…that’s the formal structure. We’ve all accepted this??????????
“Governor Andrew Cuomo gave a holiday present to voting rights advocates on Tuesday signing the state’s first automatic voter registration (AVR) bill into law. Now eligible voters will automatically be registered when they interact with multiple state and city agencies that already collect the information required by the State Board of Elections.
“New York now joins 18 other states plus the District of Columbia with a policy that makes AVR the default option, requiring people who are eligible to vote to opt out if they do not want to register, instead of opting in.”
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s ruling and allowed Alabama’s egregious gerrymandered Congressional map to remain in place.
There’s no reason to sugarcoat this. Across the country, Republican state legislatures are using extreme gerrymandering to cement their power for decades, and the window to stop them is closing fast.
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Senate Democrats must use every tool at their disposal to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act before the GOP rigs their way back to power in the midterms.
Know the truth about how we got into this gerrymandering mess - and what we can do to get out of it.
Our best shot at saving our democracy is right now. It’s time to act.
Something you have to understand about recent American history is that the Republican party lost its shit in the 1960s. There are always plenty of reasons for decades-long historical trends, but arguably the core one is that Lyndon Johnson’s administration made a bunch of human rights advances known collectively as the Great Society, the cornerstone of which was a sincere and substantive effort to address the unfinished business of Reconstruction with the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.
I am not here to overwhelm you with a list of all the American right wing’s assaults on democracy. But there is a relatively narrow subset which forms a pattern that has become increasingly urgent: times Republicans have abused, usurped, or radically and unilaterally bastardized the power of American government in order to limit voters’ ability to hold them accountable in free and fair elections.
Because it only includes events backed up by reliable and freely available sources, it necessarily only includes the times times they were ham-fisted or sloppy enough to get caught. It has over two dozen entries and is almost certainly incomplete.
This is just the list of things that I could remember off the top of my head and could find receipts for with relative ease. It doesn’t include things that are plausible but unproven, like the allegations that Reagan’s 1980 campaign staff tried to repeat Nixon’s first stunt by working to prolong the Iran hostage crisis because it was a winning campaign issue for him. It doesn’t include dirty, bigoted campaigns that you might call awful but lawful, like the racist “Willie Horton” ad campaign in 1988 or the repulsive homophobic ballot initiatives that were engineered to bolster George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign. It doesn’t include the wide array of brutalizations of a constitutional small-d democratic system which aren’t specifically and concretely about elections – everything from eroding the credibility of scientists, experts, and reporterstopacking the courts with proto-fascist hacks to lying the American people into war in Iraq.
It really doesn’t matter whether or not I think Republicans win elections legitimately. It’s extremely important that Republicans do not believe they can win elections legitimately.
Now think for a second about their cherished “voter fraud” trope. All this time, Republicans have been screeching that SOMEONE was out there trying to steal elections FROM THEM. It is absolutely correct to focus on and be upset about the racist history and intent of this particular conspiracy theory. I would simply argue that white supremacism is not the only unforgivable aspect of this nonsense trope. The other is the way those claims make it impossible to deal with actual threats against legitimate elections.
This is similar to what psychologists call projection, or the tactic domestic violence experts refer to as DARVO. It is not unrelated to “swiftboating” or the phenomenon students of genocide refer to as the “accusation in a mirror.” It is the axiom small children cite when they say “he who smelt it, dealt it.”
So I’m sorry to disappoint if you were expecting a “many bad people on all sides” disclaimer about who does political dirty tricks, but “both sides” is not operative,no matter how desperate the hot-take-industrial-complex is to make fetch happen. It hasn’t been operative for twenty-five years, and it’s really not operative for the next six months. You can bury yourself deep in literature about asymmetric polarization, but you don’t have to do all that to understand what’s important here. Democrats support democracy and want to stop the plague, Republicans support the plague and want to stop democracy, and you should be extremely skeptical of anyone who claims not to know the difference.
Sophism is when one reasons fallaciously in hopes of deceiving someone. In other words, it is when someone employs fallacious, yet convincing, reasoning to sway someone. In some cases, people with these tendencies will project by accusing their opponent of sophistry or they will employ a No True Scotsman in saying that their opponent cannot possible be a “real” philosopher. I do not take kindly to such ad hominem and that is why I discontinued the discussion. Some of you may have seen this in my opponent’s response yesterday. These issues are minor. The major issue is in how he defines words.
Sophists tend to define words by omitting the use their opponent is using. When I say voting rights infringe upon other more integral, unalienable rights like the right to life or healthcare, I am not at all talking about a negative right, as he defined, in where one can hypothetically defend their right using force. While this isa definition of a right, it is not the only definition on offer. A right is also a principle of entitlement, a positive right, and so, when I say someone has the right to life, what I am saying is that they are entitled to live, irrespective of what the Constitution says; the phrase right to life in The Declaration of Independence is described as unalienable, god-given if you prefer. While there are clauses attached to this entitlement, such as they are entitled to live given that they do not murder someone, my definition is just as valid as the one my opponent employed. The difference is that my opponent dismissed my definition in order to deceive his readers. That is to say nothing of the validity of the distinction of negative and positive rights; plenty of philosophers (e.g. Eric Nelson, Ian Carter, Henry Shue) do not think the distinction is valid or even necessary.
He, for instance, continued to accuse me of not knowing what rights are, as though definitions themselves do not describe words in a self-evident fashion. A right is sometimes synonymous with a certain entitlement, but not all entitlements, real or imagined, are rights. A man may feel that after dating his girlfriend for five years, he is entitled to have sex with her. Consent is still at play no matter how long a couple has dated and so, he is not entitled to have sex with his girlfriend; she is not entitled to sex with her boyfriend either. These are matters of consent and as such, it is a privilege that they grant one another. The right to life is self-evident as even the Declaration of Independence attests. I do not need to go any further on that.
In that same vein, he mentions consent of the governed and people providing healthcare and bizarrely asserts that taxation is a violation of bodily autonomy; he does nothing at all to ground this claim, but, ironically enough, begs the question. Under the current government, 100 million or so people forgo their voting rights every election and many more forgo their rights as it pertains to electing state and local officials on a year-to-year basis. This implies that the right to vote is not as integral as some argue and definitely not as integral as my right to life. I may willingly surrender my right to vote given that I’m not particularly drawn to any of the candidates; I will not willingly surrender my right to live, assuming I am not terminally ill or mentally incapacitated. I am entitled to live and that is an integral entitlement; I am also entitled to vote, but that is not an integral entitlement as I can willingly choose not to.
What I have proposed, as Plato and others before me have, is an Epistocracy. Also of note is that he flat-out asserts Plato was wrong without justifying it; that is more more evidence that he has presupposed his conclusions. It is not a soft tyranny as he claimed. It is rule of the knowledgeable. What I am basically arguing is that if a third of the population is not going to vote anyway, we should decide on which one-third that is. The one-third that I temporally want to exclude are the least informed and that is assuming that such people even comprise one-third of the population; they might comprise a smaller portion than one-third and as such, I can say that at least I am not excluding as many people as are currently excluded and who have been excluded, at times, with malicious intent. The least informed are individuals who have not learned to or do not care to think critically. Since they do not think critically, they are prone to ignoring crucial issues and engaging in cult-like, conspiracy-based reasoning. A White Supremacist, on paper, is entitled to vote, but since he votes to harm minorities, he should not retain that entitlement.
Felons are largely excluded from the political process because they surrendered that entitlement in breaking the law. So it is up to my hypothetical government to decide at which point someone has committed to all that is required prior to breaking the law. What separates the average White Supremacist from Kyle Rittenhouse? The question boils down to who is armed and who is not and who is willing to harm or murder minorities versus who is not. Who then is the ideologue and who is willing to act on erred convictions? Since there is no sound reasoning to justify racism, discrimination, and prejudice, then White Supremacists should not be entitled to vote. Since there is no way of predicting which White Supremacist will act on their erred convictions, they should not be entitled to vote. Full stop!
Theconsent of the governed does not reduce to mere voting rights. In being a citizen or legal immigrant in the United States, you have de facto consented to be governed whether you vote or not, whether you are entitled to vote or not. Our current government already excludes a large portion of the population due to criminal records, gerrymandering, and other forms of voter suppression. So there is no material difference in my saying that we should exclude certain people for reasons separate from the ones the government uses to justify their exclusion and disenfranchisement of certain voters. As I have shown, however, I think my reasons for excluding the woefully ignorant are far better than the reasons given to exclude an entire demographic in a certain district or most felons without distinction. The primary reason is that voting rights cannot be prioritized over unalienable rights, so if a person votes with the intent to harm minorities, the minority’s right to live supersedes the White Supremacist’s right to vote. If I have to ground an entire moral framework to prove that conclusion, then my opponent is basically arguing that the right to life is not unalienable and is therefore, a privilege reserved for some and not others.
All felons are not created equal. Sure, a murderer on death row has long surrendered his entitlement to vote. Someone wrongfully accused of a crime or someone serving a marijuana-related sentence should not be excluded. Yet, in most cases, no distinction is made between the former felon and the latter. Then there is the real crux: my exclusion is notpermanent. You can be a White Supremacist today and not be one tomorrow. That means that you can learn why you are wrong about non-Whites and come to see common humanity in minorities. Any and all kinds of ignorance can be rectified given time, so it is entirely possible to justify a vote for any candidate in an informed manner. What my hypothetical government would guarantee is an informed voter who does not vote along party lines, who does not double-down on a quasi-fascist like Trump, who does not ignore science and the urgency of Climate Change, and so on. A more informed electorate is absolutely a good thing and the exclusion stemming from my hypothetical government is preferable to the extant exclusion in the current U.S. government.
In any case, this is why I refused to exchange further. Sophists define words by omitting definitions they dislike. They accuse, commit fallacies, and project their errors onto you. Ultimately, sophists tend to be disingenuous because they have predilections and surmises they think are self-evident and so they do not commit to the philosophical work of reasoning to their conclusion; this was observed in my opponent’s bizarre claim that taxation violates bodily autonomy and that the provision of healthcare, in where one is paid by the government, is also a violation of bodily autonomy. These conclusions are not argued for or justified in any way and entirely ignore state-provided healthcare in other countries in where people have consented to pay their taxes for sake of receiving free healthcare and tuition-free college educations.
I have reasoned to my conclusion. I have seen the real harm in letting ignorant people vote year after year; these people have been given no (dis)incentive to rectify that ignorance. So basically what I am saying is that if we disincentivize ignorance, people will want to become more informed. They would not call every disagreeable story about their favored candidate “fake news.” They would not go down the rabbit-hole of conspiracy theories. They would have good reason to change. I see nothing at all wrong with telling people this: if you want to vote, demonstrate that you are informed enough and empatheticenough to participate in this process because your vote has palpable effects on other lives. After nearly four years of suffering through the lack of empathy, apathy, hatred, and incompetence of the Trump Administration, I am more resolute now than I was two years ago: everyone should not be entitled to vote; only the demonstrably informed in the U.S. population should do so and as such, I propose Epistocracy, the rule of the knowledgeable as that incentivizes everyone to become more knowledgeable before casting a vote.
I will conclude by saying that the false equivalence he made between Epistocracy and tyranny can be dismissed very easily: Epistocracy does not permanently exclude anyone, so if anyone has an issue with being governed by the knowledgeable, then it is incumbent on them to demonstrate the aptitude to join the ranks of the knowledgeable; tyranny, on the other hand, excludes the governed and subjects them to any number of abuses. Epistocracy is not about abuse, but rather about preventing the abuse suffered by the more empathetic and knowledgeable at the hands of the cruel, apathetic, and ignorant. Perhaps we should want to exclude malignant Psychopaths, Narcissists, Sadists, and Machiavellians, most especially when they have dehumanizing and degrading views of people they do not agree with. This is beyond, “I do not like your voice” or “I do not like these people.” This is about people who speak harm and carry out actions consistent with dangerous and potentially fatal beliefs.
The United States cannot continue to tolerate such ignorance and it is clear that the entitlement to vote has fallen into the wrong hands. In the least, I can say what a lot of other people cannot say: I have proposed a viable solution. I also happen to think it is among the better solutions, especially in light of my opponent’s tacit anarchism and admiration for Capitalism. I will not challenge a sophist on such erred points of view, as they have already presupposed the conclusion; this is also painfully obvious in his ego-stroking as it pertains to Marxism. He has claimed to debase all of Marxism and this should not surprise anyone given that my opponent’s love for Capitalism entails feeling threatened by an anti-Capitalist like Marx. There is no argument to be had with such people. In any event, be mindful of the tendency to define words by omitting key definitions. Such an individual does not want a genuine dialogue; they just want to win. Nothing productive comes from that.
Black Futures Month uplifts the right to vote. Artwork by Alyssa Etoile @etoilearts. Find her at instagram.com/alyssa_etoile and twitter.com/alyssaetoile.
In some states, you need to have an ID in order to vote. In other states, you don’t. Different states accept different things as ID (eg: In some states it can be things like a utility bill).
Vote Riders also has a Voter ID hotline you can call if you need help understanding voter ID in your state, or if you need help getting an ID: 844-338-8743.
For those of us in the United States, an election is coming really soon. (In some states, early voting has already started). Does anyone have questions about voting or how voting works?
Right now, most elected Democrats in the U.S. say that former convicted felons should “regain” the right to vote after they have left prison. This is in contrast to the Republicans, who say that the loss of civil rights should extend after the end of your sentence. The Democrats’ position, as is often the case, doesn’t go far enough.
I think it’s important to make voting rights universal, because if we have a class of people without the right to vote, then the pro-voter-suppression party constantly pushes more people into that class. People in prison can’t vote, so conservatives created the “war on drugs” to get as many black people into prison as possible to stop them from voting. People in mental hospitals (or “Shadow Prisons”) can’t vote, which is why Republicans love to say queer people are “mentally ill.” If we just allowed everyone to vote, no exceptions, then it would be a lot harder for voter-suppression to gain a foothold.
It’s similar to how welfare programs which benefit everyone, like Medicare, Social Security, and the national health care systems of other countries, are more politically resilient than those which only directly help some people, like Medicaid, SNAP, or unemployment benefits. Republicans are constantly introduces tweaks and loopholes to the eligibility rules for unemployment benefits to make it so that people who need them don’t qualify. By contrast, everyone gets Medicare and Social Security once they reach a fixed age. And sure, there are rich people who don’t need Medicare because they can afford to pay out of pocket. But by giving it to everyone, we avoid allowing Republicans to nudge the line of who exactly qualifies to exclude people who actually need it.
Also, from a more idealistic standpoint, the core of democracy is that the majority rules. If democracy really works, then it shouldn’t matter if (for example) murderers are allowed to vote, because the majority will make the right decision and keep murder illegal. If we need an undemocratic method to exclude “bad people” from being able to vote, then democracy doesn’t work and we should be looking for another form of government (and good luck with that!)
Thank you for chatting with us, Portia! Conversation around voting has been in the news a lot most recently in regard to the closing of polling places in Kentucky. Tell us a little bit about your work in this area.
We’re at a critical moment in history, both politically and socially, and voting rights is directly at the forefront. I am currently the Associate Director of Law and Policy at the Voting Rights Lab where I devise policy strategy on ballot access, voter restoration, and, of late, COVID-19 response. While I’m at a national organization, we work in partnership within states - and across the political spectrum - to protect and advance voting rights.
I watched a discussion between Brittany Packnett Cunningham and Stacey Abrams and one of the things they mentioned was the need to understand what voter suppression looks at the individual state level. For those who don’t know, what are some of the different forms that voter suppression can take?
All suppression refers to is when parties engage in strategies that keep people from voting in an attempt to influence election outcomes. Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t just something that happens in the South, and it isn’t just done by Republicans. Suppression also looks different everywhere you go. In some places it is shuttered polling places, voter ID requirements, and broken voting machines. In other places, it is changing polling places for every election, or separating municipal elections from statewide or federal elections, which tend to have greater turnout.
Aside from Black people, are there other demographics that are particularly susceptible to voter suppression?
Yes! It is not just Black people whose vote gets suppressed. There are young people students, who are often less familiar with the voting system; infrequent voters, who don’t keep up with changes; new voters, including recent U.S. citizens; voters experiencing homelessness, who may not have a permanent address to receive mail or other election communications; and voters whose primary language is not English. The different mechanisms of suppression can affect the turnout of different groups, and so it is critical that we recognize all of its forms.
Obviously, this year is an important election year with the presidential race on the ballot. Is voter suppression as much of an issue in local or statewide elections?
It is on the agenda, but it is very much couched in terms of voting during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the US continues not to have its shit together in responding to the pandemic, voters are very concerned about whether they will be able to vote safely. Much of the question of who will be suppressed ends up being about who has access to absentee ballots and early voting, who can register during a pandemic, how to obtain IDs when motor vehicle agencies are closed, how many polling places remain open, etc. All of these issues are suppression issues.
In terms of electoral politics, voting rights sometimes isn’t as much of an issue candidates run on, but it should be. The quality of our democracy depends on the ease with which people can participate, and we should be forcing candidates to state their positions on voting and how they will expand access to the ballot by removing all of the restrictions and barriers.
As much as we talk about the importance of voting, there are also some people who don’t see voting as a ‘silver bullet.’ Do you have any thoughts on that?
I am laughing because I’m definitely one of those people. Voting is important for all of the reasons people acknowledge: civic duty, having a say in government, social cohesion and feeling a part of something. And at the state and local level, races can sometimes be so tight that any single vote can really determine the outcome. But we are not going to be able to vote ourselves out of this mess. What I typically say, and personally believe, is that we need multiple tactics. So I say vote as one tactic for change, so long as you believe it is helpful and not harmful to the ultimate vision of change you wish to see in the world. But also continue to attack the system from multiple directions to move us all towards justice.
For those interested in voting rights, what are some of the best ways to get involved?
If you are healthy and a registered voter, you should become a poll worker. Many poll workers are high-risk of COVID, since they tend to be older, which is contributing to a national poll worker shortage. So no matter where you are in the country there is a need for people. And if you can’t do that, work to elect people who believe in protecting and expanding the franchise, and not suppressing it. There are so many great people running, especially at the state and local level, and they all need support. That support can be financial or volunteering to phone bank or write postcards; it all matters.
This depends STATE BY STATE (or town by town), so check out your own state’s rules. As for everywhere, only poll workers are banned from this, and people holding up signs for candidates have to be a certain distance from the building.
[Image Description:
A Screenshot of a public Facebook-Textpost by “Sandy and Richard Riccardi”.
This word of caution is from someone who has worked the polls a lot in the past: More and more I’m seeing women announcing they will be voting with shirts, buttons, masks or hats that say “Ruth Send Me”, or something similar. [Transcriptor Annotation: the late Supremecourt Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. /End of Annotation.] Remember: political messages aren’t allowed in the polling place (that could include [Black Lives Matter] shirts, unfortunately.) Also unfortunately, messages can be interpreted by whoever is in charge. It could mean, in some cases, that a voter wearing a shirt they believe is political can be denied the right to vote after waiting in line for hours. Approach this election strategically and vote smarter and cleaner than ever have before. Understand that the other side will do what it takes to advance their agenda. We need to vote in record numbers. But we need to vote smart. We can wear that wonderful “Ruth send me” shirt or mask when we get home, and raise a glass in her memory. Please copy, or paraphrase, and share with the groups you are members of, as appropriate. Help spread the word so that every vote counts! We all know what’s at stake. Do not throw away your shot. [Transcriptor Annotation: four emojis follow the text, the Peace-Symbol, a red heart, a rooster, paw prints. /End Annotation. /End of Image Transcription.]
Thank you for the image description!
I remember a story of someone having trouble at the polls because they were wearing a Stark/Rogers (as in Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, the very fictional people) so BE CAREFUL.
If possible, honestly the safest thing to do is wear plain clothes, with no words or messaging on them, no buttons, no stickers, no hats with words.
There will be 50,000 Republican ‘observers’ at the polls, concentrated in battleground states, to 'challenge’ voters they think are not properly qualified (or whatnot). We can’t give them any ammunition.
The Supreme Court just issues a rulingallowing Ohio and other states to purge voters from their election registration rolls due to their failure to cast a ballot in previous elections.
This is a major victory for the Trump administration and the GOP, and a direct consequence of the Supreme Court being stacked with more conservative judges (the votes were 5-4). This is also a huge part of what Trump/the GOP were counting on to save them in the 2018 midterm elections, which is where Democrats have been hoping to take back a majority in the House, giving them more power to combat Trump’s abuses of power and Republican legislation.
What this means is YOU CAN NOT ASSUME THAT YOU ARE REGISTERED for the 2018 elections, just because you SHOULD be. Thanks to this decision, red states can purge voters’ registration based on their not having cast a ballot in even just previous federal elections, NOT just the national Presidential elections. Effectively, if you haven’t voted in previous senate races or for congressional representatives in the past few years, that’s all they need now to say you’re no longer registered and need to register again.
They’re deliberately counting on people assuming they’re still registered and so not checking until after registration deadlines have passed, or showing up to vote this November and only then finding out they’re no longer registered, when its too late to do a damn thing about it.
And this is absolutely targeted at marginalized communities, low income voters, disabled voters, and basically anyone who simply can’t always AFFORD to keep on top of every federal election and show up to vote in every senate race, etc. Which not so coincidentally happen to be all the communities and voters who have the most to gain from Democratic victories in the 2018 midterms and are the least likely to cast votes for GOP candidates at this point.
This was absolutely a calculated effort aimed specifically at keeping the GOP in power with a majority control of the government come November, and unfortunately, it has a DAMN good chance of accomplishing just that if it goes by unacknowledged. I’m not looking to alarm or panic anyone, simply to say:
If you are a registered voter in a red state at this point, please please please do not take your registered status as assumed. Check on your registration status, look up all relevant voter registration deadlines for your state and district, CIRCLE THAT SHIT ON YOUR CALENDAR, and check your registration status AGAIN right before those deadlines pass, so you can be sure of it before its too late to do anything about it til the next voting cycle.
Please don’t forget to vote on the ballot measures. Check your ballot pages front and back, to make sure you don’t miss anything. You can see what’s on your ballot here. You might be asked to vote on the gig economy, marijuana legalization, abortion rights, sex education, taxes, voting rights, public school funding, and more.
This post is the last in a series about voter registration deadlines for the 2020 U.S. General Election. To read the first post, clickhere. To see the second post, click here. The embedded links will take you to voter registration applications and more information. Please hover over the text in parentheses for the embedded links, since not all embedded links are underlined text. A star, or asterisk (*), means the state has a later registration deadline for a certain registration method. For example, Minnesota allows you to register in-person on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3. This is also called Same Day Voter Registration. This post was developed usingBallotpedia and The League of Women Voters’Vote411.org.
Guam* (Same Day Voter Registration: in-person during Early Voting: until 6:00 P.M. on Friday, October 23, 2020; mail: contact Guam Election Commission)
Utah* (in-person,mail: received, online: by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, October 23, 2020) (Same Day Voter Registration: in-person during Early Voting Period (Tuesday, October 20- Friday, October 30, 2020, or on Election Day: Tuesday, November 3, 2020)
Saturday, October 24:
Iowa* (in-person: by 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 24, 2020; mail: received, online) (Same Day Voter Registration: in-person at polling place on Election Day: Tuesday November 3, 2020
Colorado* (in-person,mail: received, online) (in-person: Same Day Voter Registration: During Early Voting Period: Monday, October 19-Monday, November 2, 2020, or until 7:00 PM on Election Day: Tuesday, November 3, 2020)
Montana* (mail: postmarked) (in-person: Same Day Voter Registration: During Early Voting Period: October 5-Monday, November 2, 2020, or on Election Day: Tuesday, November 3, 2020)
Washington* (mail, includes other languages: received, online) (in-person: Same Day Voter Registration: During the Early Voting Period: October 16-Tuesday, November 3, 2020, or on Election Day: Tuesday, November 3, 2020)
Nevada* (online) (in-person: Same Day Voter Registration: During the Early Voting Period: October 17-Friday, October 30, 2020, or on Election Day: Tuesday, November 3, 2020)
[Image Description: White oval with text on a navy blue background. Image of an “I Voted”-style sticker that says, ‘The Big Send 2020: I’m A Big Sender’. votefwd.org]
There’s still time to send letters to voters! Vote Forward is a grassroots organization that provides letter templates and instructions for volunteers to write letters to voters. Volunteers use just their first name and first initial of their last name. Vote Forward provides the return address (a post office box). These short, handwritten letters (1-3 sentences) encourage voters to vote. The letter templates include links to nonpartisan voter information websites (state boards of elections), and the phone number for the Election Protection Hotline.
