On Saturday, Hope Springs from Field PAC organized Voter Suppression mitigation canvasses in Texas, Pennsylvania and Georgia. In Georgia, we have been knocking on doors for a month, and had initially been concerned about the hurricane. But our intrepid Albany State organizers were determined. For them (kids really), having just endured their first (afaik) real experience with the Ku Klux Klan and voter suppression, the need to pass the voting rights law and on-going voter protection is very real. “We don’t have a weekend to waste,” they decided.
About 10:15 am on Saturday, I get a call. “We have a volunteer (an older African-American woman they described as ‘experienced’) asking, Why are we asking people if they are registered to vote at their current address? She thinks it’s intrusive. How do we respond.”
Our Georgia canvasses -- our whole current strategy really -- are driven by these organizers who got engaged, experienced and motivated during the Georgia special Senate runoffs. More to the point, they are determined not to lose the gains we made because of the runoffs. And that means not only keeping Rev. Warnock’s seat, but the Democratic majority in the Senate. We are all in this together.
But it was a good question, notwithstanding the timing and the fact that I, too, was in the midst of training canvass volunteers. And the answer is, it’s the law. Since 2002 (HAVA), voters have been required to be registered at their current address. But the primary reason we are reminding people this, and re-registering them if they are not registered at their current address, is that Republican poll watchers are using the National Change of Address database to challenge voter’s right to cast a ballot if they believe the voter isn’t registered at their current address. So even if you are legally registered, but NCoA suggests you or a family member may have moved, you could be challenged, even made to cast a provisional ballot at the polls — and then forced to document you live at the registered address shortly afterward (ballot curing).
The Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights thinks millions of legally cast ballots were not counted because the last step is not completed. And they believe that this disproportionately effects People of Color. I would argue that this is so because Republican and conservative groups are challenging voters in predominately Democratic areas, whereas Democrats don’t. We believe U.S. citizens who are registered should have a right to vote.
As a result, Democratic campaigns can no longer functionally end on election day, but must anticipate continuation at least until the period for ballot curing is over. Activists must start to take that into account, as well. The election won’t be over until (Democratic) ballots are cured!
In the Georgia special runoff, we didn’t let up until Friday, the last day to cure ballots. And I reminded my Albany State organizers of this, because they had participated in tracking down voters whose ballots needed to be cured. But they had forgotten (it wasn’t an exciting memory) and it’s drudge work. Both the new and the old voter suppression laws are all about making voters jump through additional hoops, unnecessary hoops, and we just can’t expect them to do that without being reminded, assisted and even harassed until the final steps are complete.
Remember, Democrats are not sending poll watchers out with the intent to add steps to the process. For us, poll watching is more about protecting our voters, protecting the process from corruption; it is not an strategically offensive tactic. Conservatives, and especially Southern conservatives, have a long tradition of preventing people from voting, and challenging voters using the NCoA is just the most recent iteration. Since the country has become more ideologically sorted, we have actually made it easier for Republicans to do this. Our tactical response has to evolve to meet the challenge.
So asking people if they are registered at their current address is the beginning of that response. Asking as early as possible allows us to re-register more voters and get both volunteers and voters in the mind-set of super-compliance. Super-compliance is a big f*ck you to Republican legislators, who are counting on our inability to convince our voters to jump through the (unnecessary) hoops. And we can’t count on voters to keep up with the changes in the laws. We have to inform them, remind them and keep reminding them until the election is won.
Hope Springs from Field PAC is knocking on doors in a grassroots-led effort to increase awareness of the fact that Democrats care about our voters and are working to protect their rights. We are thinking about how to mitigate Voter Suppression efforts, get around them and make sure we have "super compliance," both informing and helping our voters meet the requirements and get out and vote. We are taking those efforts to the doors of the communities most effected (the intended targets or victims) of these new voter suppression laws.
Obviously, we rely on grassroots support, so if you support field/grassroots organizing and our efforts to protect our voters, we would certainly appreciate your support:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/voterprotection
Hope Springs from Field PAC was started by former Obama Field Organizers because field was the cornerstone of our success. The approach we adopted was focused on listening, on connecting voters and their story to the candidate and our cause. Repeated face to face interactions are critical. And we are among those who believe that Democrats didn’t do as well in the 2020 Congressional races as expected because we didn’t knock on doors. We are returning to the old school basics: repeated contacts, repeated efforts to remind them of protocols, meeting them were they are. Mentoring those who need it (like first time and newly registered voters). Reminding, reminding, reminding, and then chasing down those voters whose ballots need to be cured.
We did this for the senate runoffs, and we are now taking this approach to the field in Georgia (again), Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. We hope to be able to get into the field in Arizona, but require more funding to make that commitment.
On Saturday, we had 85 volunteers knocking on doors in 3 counties in Southwest Georgia, aka as the “Black Belt.” Our volunteers were drawn mainly from Albany State students, some local party activists (who several students contend they come “just to keep an eye on us), and other volunteers from the senate runoff. The vast, vast majority of these volunteers were PoC. They knocked on 6,460 doors and talked to 831 voters. 628 issues questionnaires were completed by voters, several of them at the same door. Residents filled 19 Constituent Service Request Forms, which have now been turned over to the appropriate Democratic public officials who can help them with their issues. 1 new voter registration form was completed and 3 voters updated their address, and all four were taken to their county’s registrar’s office on Monday. The newly registered voter was assigned a mentor from Albany State’s Delta Sigma Theta. 2 voters completed Incident Reports of issues they observed in the last election (1 was the flyer from the KKK).
Volunteers also did wellness checks, although none of the 831 voters reported damage. This “ask” was derived from Team Beto’s efforts after the winter storms in Texas. People seemed to like that.
If you are able to support our efforts to protect Democratic voters, especially in minority communities, expand the electorate, and believe in grassroots efforts to increase voter participation, please do:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/voterprotection
Thank you for your support.
