General Election is Tuesday, November 3, 2020
Your superpower is your vote and your pen is mightier.
Use it on a ballot!
tl;dr!?
- tl;dr!? I haven’t written a ‘Sundry Assortment’ with all its glorious redundancy since September 27, 2019 which is so last year and maybe that is at the crux of our funk and how quickly we digress. We do love our sundries. This post is about voting, available voter resources, and a site to report voter suppression, intimidation, or malfeasance encountered while exercising one of your civic superpowers — your right to vote in a free and fair election.
- tl;dr;you already voted!? Great! We are in standing ovation formation. Now engage, encourage, and assist others in their civic participation. Maybe all it takes is a nudge and one of the web links below and you can tic off another superpower! You are an influencer. And we continue to stand in ovation.
- tl;dr;voter resource summary!?: 1) I will vote, 2) VOTE411, 3) Ballotpedia, 4) seesay2020. <— these are links that don’t appear as links in an accordion because WordPress, why? <gaellic shrug>
- tl;dr;memory lane!? Viva’s post documenting poll work in November 2018.
Voter Resources
The brew that we’re swimming through for this General Election includes COVID, upheaval and uncertainty at the USPS, a POTUS who makes not sideways comments but full-frontal verbal assaults on election processes, democratic norms, political rivals, private citizens and well, it’s a long list.
Write your plan to vote.
Write a contingency plan.
Mark your calendar and make your plan happen!
If you are able to, vote early or vote absentee.
If you need assistance with the voting process, the websites ‘I will vote’ and ‘Vote 411’ navigate to state specific sites. Both sites have a voter hotline for questions. And ‘I will vote’ has a front page link for those voting abroad (‘Voting While Living Abroad’).
Hotline: 833.336.8683
Democratic National Committee
Hotline: 866.687.8683
League of Women Voters
Be an informed voter. If you have questions about the candidates on your ballot, check out Ballotpedia. This is the full Who We Are text from the Ballotpedia ‘About‘ page (pulled 2020.10.13):
Ballotpedia is the digital encyclopedia of American politics and elections. Our goal is to inform people about politics by providing accurate and objective information about politics at all levels of government. We are firmly committed to neutrality in our content; here’s why.
As a nonprofit, our mission is to educate. We’re here for you when:
- You’re considering a run for office.
- You’re making decisions about how you’ll vote in an election.
- You need the latest political news and analysis from a reliable, nonpartisan source.
Ballotpedia’s articles are 100 percent written by our professional staff of more than 50 writers and researchers. Although we have an office in Middleton, Wisconsin, the majority of our staff work from home offices across the United States. Geoff Pallay serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Ballotpedia. See a full list of Ballotpedia’s employees.
If you see something – say it’s voter suppression in action, say something – report it. Crowd-sourced and new for 2020, seesay2020.com is an online site to report issues encountered while exercising your right to vote or to check if issues have been reported in your state or area.
Voter Suppression – Map of Incidents
I followed the link ‘Map of Incidents’ on seesay2020.com, zoomed in on a dot in South Carolina and this is what a voter there encountered and reported. (Screenshot taken 2020.10.12.)
Full seesay2020.com Disclosure statement (pulled from the web 2020.10.13, Viva bold):
DISCLOSURE: By submitting a report, you acknowledge and agree that Democracy Labs may store your report and contact information (name, phone number, email), and may make your report and contact information accessible to our partner organizations, which include news media outlets and voting rights advocates. You also acknowledge that your report and name may be shared with members of the public, and grant permission for our partners to contact you. We will not use your report or contact information for marketing or commercial purposes. Your report may be used to help generate a map of potential incidents at http://www.seesay2020map.com; this map may display details regarding your report (including description, location, time, and photographs or other documents), but will not display your name or contact information. Submitting a report does not guarantee that you will receive a response from our partners. See Say 2020 is a free app powered by Democracy Labs, a project of Tides Advocacy. Thank you for helping keep our elections free and fair.
Viva voted!
In a previous post I published my voting plan in Wisconsin.
And check! My completed absentee ballot was received by the municipal clerk.
Now to be counted.
A Sundry Assortment of Politickles
While looking through 2018 election-related posts, I tripped across the post ‘A Sundry Assortment of Politickles‘ which documented my experience working the polls in November 2018. Voting is serious business, every vote counts – I went to bed thinking Walker was going to remain Governor, my early (D) preferred presidential ticket was Harris-Klobuchar, and we struggle a more perfect union. Enjoy!
Or not.
Wear a mask.
Maintain physical distance.
Be kind.
Exercise your superpower and vote! You count.
