Presidents' Letter for November 2020
by Elizabeth Crowe
Election Day: Patience and Vigilance
Election Day is nearly upon us, a culmination of months of voter service and advocacy activities that are the League’s hallmark. We’ll have more voter service and advocacy activity results to tally, but this fall our amazing League members logged 76 voter registration tables, registering more than 230 voters! We held online candidate forums for 11 races, with Spanish translation for all but one of those forums, and partnerships with three local organizations. We held two virtual presentations covering eight ballot initiatives. Our VOTE411 team populated the website with questions for each candidate, all the ballot issue information and much more. To advertise the VOTE411.org site we used flyers, hand-held posters, website, social media and voter guide ads, and radio spots on KGNU. To support National Popular Vote, our members generated thousands of hand-written and stamped postcards and even marched between Front Range communities. We should all be proud of these efforts!
Now, we wait for the results. This year, due to the surge of states newly experiencing mail-in-ballot methods and the predicted longer wait times for in-person voting due to COVID-19 precautions it is unlikely we will have key election results until much later. LWV has been preparing for this situation by encouraging voters and political leaders to exercise and encourage patience, so that every vote can be counted accurately. Democracy is worth the wait!
Unfortunately, patience is not the the only virtue we’ll need. We must also be vigilant as we watch carefully for signs of voter intimidation or discrimination. To prepare for this possibility, LWVUS and partner organizations provides resource including an Active Bystander Intervention Training and Election Security talking points that we can all use to help secure everyone’s right to vote.
To help spread the message of Election Day patience and vigilance, check out the League’s Facebook page and ‘share’ posts and videos; tell your friends, neighbors and colleagues to check out VOTE411.org; and watch for alerts from our local, state and national League regarding any post-election urgent action opportunities. |