Feature
Protecting the Vote – We Can Help
We’re tired. We’re busy. We’re discouraged. We in Loretto are getting older. But if we don’t act to help protect the vote, we’ll only feel worse.
Voter Registration
Start by checking when voter registration ends in your state. Voting Day is Nov. 3. Registration ends in Kentucky Monday, Oct. 5. What’s the final date in your state? How does one register? In Kentucky you can register online at https://vrsws.sos.ky.gov/
Find out for your state and tell folks. Tell us. We’ll publish timely news in the MMM. Invite people to register. Help them. Protect the vote by helping people use it.
The County Clerk
The county clerks manage the vote. They keep voting records up to date and accurate. They accept applications for absentee ballots. They manage drop boxes for absentee ballots and receive the mailed ballots. They maintain the voting machines and count the ballots. And they field a lot of inquiries and challenges to how they made their decisions in every step of the process.
The county clerk is a saint. Know their name and phone number. You may not need it, but it’s good to have. The Marion County, Ky., clerk is Chad Mattingly. When those of us over 80 submitted our requests for absentee ballots, Chad met with us in the dining room and asked us if we had filled our our applications truthfully. We said “Yes,” and he said, “If asked, I can say on the stand that you all declared your applications are true.” Another county over, the clerk was challenged for sending absentee ballots to a nursing home. The job is fraught.
State Laws
State laws vary widely. Registration deadline, who can vote by mail, the hours the polls are open — these are the easy questions. You may not have any hard questions, but if you do, call the county clerk!
Other resources include the League of Women Voters, the American Civil Liberties Union, state Democrats and Republicans and many local groups.
Canvassing for Candidates
A big way to protect the vote is to inform the voters. Get out and talk to them, or call them up. This is your opportunity to say what’s important to you — and to hear what’s important to them. Talk to your mail carrier, your hair dresser, the gas station attendant you’ve gotten to know over the years. And by “talk,” I do mean “listen.”
“Are you voting this year?”
“I don’t know. Are you?”
“Yes, I’m voting. I couldn’t face my mother in heaven if I didn’t vote. What’s holding you back?”
And the conversation is off and running.
Canvassing for the political parties is more structured. They have new canvassing tools that download the list of who to call or visit onto your smart phone. They’ll send you to infrequent voters, undecided voters, new voters, voters who just moved into the neighborhood. You tell them why you are voting for particular candidates. You ask if they’ve got a plan to vote. And you fill out all the answers in your phone.
Canvassing is probably the most effective way to persuade a voter to vote for your candidate, way better than those ugly attack ads. Actually, the ads often leave people not wanting to vote. If you’re wondering what to say, try reading Ben Wikler’s “This Is the Plan: How to End America’s Meltdown and Save Democracy,” funny and practical.
Once more, getting out the vote, getting people committed to a candidate, is voter protection in action.
Early Voting, Absentee Ballots, Voting by Mail
When you canvass, ask folks what their plan is. Make your own plan. For more and more of us, that plan is no longer showing up at the polling place on voting day. We’re voting early just to be sure.
State law varies. In Kentucky there are several days prior to Election Day when one can go to particular poling sites to vote. Missouri too. Some states, like Colorado and California, mail out ballots to all registered voters. In Kentucky you have to apply for a mail-in ballot, usually by claiming a disability (like being over 80). And in Kentucky an absentee ballot amounts to the same thing, except that if you don’t want to mail it, you can drop it by the county clerk’s office. Know the law (ask your clerk) and help your neighbors vote.
Poll Watching and Voting Machines
There is talk that ICE or soldiers will be at some polling places. There is talk that some voting machines may be compromised. There are strategies being developed to resist election interference on Election Day. For example, most simply, we can walk someone into the polls.
For you and me, it’s too soon to know what we might be afraid of, much less what actions we could take. We’ll be in touch about next steps.
Our first job is to get people to vote. Every voter is a bulwark standing in protection of our right to vote.
