Voting has never been a right all Americans have enjoyed. Native Americans, African Americans, women, the poor, the "unlanded," immigrants, non Protestant Christians... The list goes on. Today it is those who would not vote the way the Republican Party thinks they should whose right to vote is being viciously, and successfully attacked by those unhappy Republicans. As those who came before us did, we must and will fight back. And we'll win.
An absolutely vital component of that fight is on-the-ground, practical, and tedious work to assist people in acquiring all the documentation -- and transportation -- the Republicans now insist on in a transparent effort to keep these wrong people from voting. These shameful voting obstruction laws are being challenged in the courts and legislatively. That is necessary and very, very good. These efforts deserve our appreciation, our help, and our funding. But so do practical, on-the-ground efforts to get people registered, get them all the necessary documentation (as well as the documentation necessary to get the necessary documentation), get them to and from their polling places, and to make sure that no one illegitimately tries to block them from voting once there.
These efforts are tedious, time consuming, and can frequently be quite expensive, especially when you add up all the people who need help navigating around all these new voter obstruction laws. There are great local, state, regional, and national groups working on this. But there doesn't seem to be a coordinated, central donation hub that people can donate to, perhaps on a recurring monthly basis, in order to do their part in the fight to protect voting in America.
A service such as Act Blue would seem to be perfect for such a hub, especially for people who want to set up recurring donations. The funds could be distributed to the national, regional, state, and local organizations which need financial help in their efforts to work against these laws on the ground. Such help would include assisting people to obtain and perhaps even pay for the new mandated IDs, and also any documents they may first have to obtain in order to get the IDs. They could also provide transportation to the appropriate polling places for both early voting and on election days. They could recruit and train poll watchers to make sure Republicans don't interfere with people's right to vote. There are groups and individuals doing difficult, great and necessary work against these measure in the courts, legislatures, and administrative halls of government. These groups also need and obviously deserve generous help and support. But we also must take a practical approach. And practical approaches to the myriad problems Republicans are constructing for our voters around the country are very expensive to enact on the ground in a comprehensive, voter-by-voter way.
The necessary funds, and therefore the necessary actions, are simply beyond the reach of many voters as well as groups and individuals who want to help them. Imagine all the good we can accomplish merely by providing a centralized donation hub to protect voter rights in America. We need it now more than ever and now, more than ever, we can harness the potential of the Internet and social media to rise up and defeat Republican efforts to deflect democracy by trying to keep us, the wrong sort of people, from voting.
If this doesn't sound like a waste of time to you, here's how you can help. I'll be proposing this idea to some of those groups. They have the experience and personnel to manage such a fund and distribute the proceeds appropriately. First, if you know of or work with any particular group or groups, please mention them in the comments. Second, if you would consider contributing to such a fund, either a single time or on a recurring basis, please say so in the comments. If we get a lot of people basically pledging to contribute, then the groups would be more likely to be interested. Last and most definitely of course, please add any suggestions you might have (including a better term than "central donation hub").