Keep Elections Free and Fair: Protect Your Vote!

Reacting to current threats to our right to vote freely in fair elections, several organizations have been conducting webinars on election protection. They include the ACLU, States at the Core (STAC has three coming up today, Friday 8/28, and next Wednesday 9/2), and our own Indivisible, including a thorough toolkit. Here are some concrete take-homes from several of these sources on protecting your right to vote:

• Obtain a passport, birth certificate, and/or REAL ID driver's license with consistent name (due to processing times, a passport may not arrive in time for election day this year) 

• Register to vote with documented name and consistent signature. If already registered, check your registration signature and update your signature if necessary

• Regularly check your voter registration status before election day

• Complete your ballot early

• Sign your precinct’s voter roll or your mail-in envelope with your registration signature

• Deliver your ballot personally to your precinct’s ballot box, a drop-box, or a vote center. Vote early!

Then, to protect the results of our votes and all votes, we may need to show up in person and in numbers during and after the election. We may need to:

• Mobilize to polling places to record and demonstrate if federal forces show up to intimidate voters in line or to confiscate ballots or voting machines

• Mobilize to election departments after polls close to monitor and record vote counting

• Mobilize to county seats and state capitols to record and monitor certification votes

The risk of rigged elections may seem low in San Francisco and most precincts in California, but you can be a trusted messenger of election information for family and friends wherever they are.