Grassroots action’s immense recent upset victory in Wisconsin, where voters kicked out a sitting conservative Supreme Court judge and elected a progressive, shows we can overcome even a rigged election.
In November, you must do it again.
When Trump tries to steal or cancel the election, our informed non-violence must rise to protect and win it. Neither the human race, nor American democracy, nor the U.S. economy will survive more of this. Our further existence as a species depends on you.
Much of the upcoming election will be through Vote by Mail (VBM). Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and Hawaii already use it with great success. VBM is probably (as Winston Churchill said of democracy) the worst election system there is—except for all the other ones. Huge problems are virtually certain. We need to be prepared to deal with them.
Congress has approved just 1/10th of the $4 billion the Brennan Center says is needed to do VBM right. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Jeff Merkley have proposed a bill asking for the money. It needs our support, as well as some serious thought about alternatives.
Sufficient voting centers need to be maintained to offset the inevitable VBM shortcomings. The presidency will be won in the Electoral College. So every state needs a coalition dedicated to contesting every detail of the stripped voter rolls and flipped vote counts we know are coming. (The Democratic Party by itself can’t be counted on to get this done.)
Gerrymandered GOP legislatures consider any ballot cast by someone who is not rich, white, old, or Republican to be “voter fraud.” Your finding (or founding) a local voting rights group to fight back is crucial. Progressive Democrats of America is among them.
Here are other ways to have a direct impact:
— Journalist Greg Palast says at least 17 million citizens have been stripped from the voter rolls. That means you, your kin, someone you know, or someone you (hopefully) will call or canvass needs help getting and casting a ballot.
— Do not assume you’re registered just because you’ve lived and voted in the same place for decades. Everyone must check the voter rolls.
— Make sure you get your ballot. Absentee paper ballots are technically available in all states. But gerrymandered legislatures don’t want you or anyone like you to get one.
— So start fighting now! Anyone who fails to get a ballot in advance may spend many hours in an election-day line amidst the pandemic threat, only to have their “provisional” vote pitched in the trash.
— Help your pro-democracy family, friends, neighbors, or those you choose to canvass to get their early ballots. Then help get them walked or mailed in.
— Forget the opinion polls! Take no chances, make no assumptions. This work must be done.
— The Electoral College will swing the presidency in 12 states: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and Iowa.
— If you live in none of those states, you can canvass by phone or go there in person.
— West Virginia, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, Kansas, Montana, and Kentucky could also be in play.
— All 33 Senate races this year are critical, but especially in Colorado, Montana, Maine (Susan Collins), North Carolina, South Carolina (Lindsey Graham), Alabama, Arizona, and Kentucky (Mitch McConnell).
— As a local poll worker, you can help guard against the sabotage we know is coming.
— As a local poll worker, you can stay late to guard the vote count.
— No candidate should concede until every vote is fairly counted and recounted, whatever the apparent initial outcome.
Two additional points (among the many to be made):
— Trump’s attack on the U.S. Postal Service means to enrich his billionaire cronies, destroy the unions representing its 700,000 workers, and cripple Vote by Mail. The USPS is a treasured American institution (dating back to Benjamin Franklin) and must be preserved.
— Legislatures in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc., are GOP-weaponized because of gerrymandering done in 2010 despite statewide Democratic majorities. They must be uprooted. By popular referenda, California won the fight for a fair, functional transparent non-partisan redistricting commission. Several Wisconsin counties endorsed this vital process last week with 4 to 1 majorities. Such commissions are essential to end the gerrymandering that’s destroying us.
We have just 6.5 months to save our species.
Every possible outrage, corporate dollar, and dictatorial dirty trick is already being thrown at us.
It will take the biggest, best-coordinated local-state-national grassroots movement in history to dump the Trump dictatorship.
You can make the difference.
There are no excuses.
This article first ran at BuzzFlash.com.
Harvey Wasserman’s ‘People’s Spiral of US History’ is at www.solartopia.org, along with ‘Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth.’ His Green Power & Wellness Show is podcast at prn.fm. California Solartopia is broadcast at KPFK/Pacifica 90.7 FM Los Angeles. The author can be contacted at solartopia@gmail.com.
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