from On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder (NY: Tim Duggan Books, 2017 ISBN 978-0-8041-9011-4):
"Much needs to be done to fix the gerrymandered system so that each citizen has one equal vote, and so that each vote can be simply counted by a fellow citizen. We need paper ballots, because they cannot be tampered with remotely and can always be recounted. This sort of work can be done at the local and state levels. We can be sure that the elections of 2018, assuming they take place, will be a test of American traditions. So there is much to do in the meantime."
I believe electoral politics is important but don’t believe it is the only political practice that is. There should definitely be at least two candidates for every position on the ballot and, when there isn’t, I write-in my own name as a protest vote. A political party that doesn’t aim to have a candidate for every office is not working to its necessary capacity and that’s why I believe it is good that the Democratic Party is sorta kinda almost maybe going back to Howard Dean’s 50 state strategy for the 2018 elections.
However, given the recent history of voter suppression and gerrymandering of the Republican Party and the hacking of voter rolls down to the county level that seems to have happened by the people or peoples it turns out to be, are you really sure that there will be 2018 elections? That there will be honest 2018 elections? If you have a scintilla of doubt, it might be good to devote some of your energy to election protection: making sure that everybody who has the right to vote gets to vote and that those votes get counted accurately and honestly.
There is also the National Election Defense Coalition
https://www.electiondefense.org/
Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project provide tools for election professionals at
2017 Voting Laws Roundup reports there are more restrictive laws than in 2015 and 2016 combined
Ed Felton of Freedom to Tinker shares his thoughts on the lessons of 2016 for USA election security
Emptywheel, Marcy Wheeler, who thinks hard and clear on these kinds of issues, offers Democrats a plan for voter protection at
"This is an opportunity to lay out standards, within the framework permitted by federalism, for real election integrity. That might include things like:
Cybersecurity standards for both machines and electoral rolls
Standards for a paper trail on voting
Rules limiting how and when [voting] purges may happen
Affirmative restrictions on identity requirements that impose financial and time costs”
One last suggestion, somebody somewhere should have a day by day plan of action from now to Election Day 2018 to protect the vote because it sure as hell appears as if the Republicans are doing their best to stop people, even eligible voters, the “wrong,” predominantly non-Republican eligible voters, from voting.