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Happy Thursday, Fellow Democrats!

We are now 138 days away from electing a new President of the United States!


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** SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS CIVIL RIGHTS
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The Supreme Court upheld two vital civil rights cases this week critical to the well-being of many of our Indian River County residents. First they affirmed that gay and transgender workers are protected under Title Vii of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits discrimination “because of sex.” They also blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program protecting our nearly 700,000 young, undocumented immigrants from deportation. These are both huge victories for our nation—and for our community.



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** BAN THE CONFEDERATE FLAG IN OUR SCHOOLS
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Due to recent events in the U.S. to affirm that black lives matter and police brutality against the black community must end, many community leaders are convinced this is a great and timely opportunity to implement a ban of the Confederate Flag in our schools. The School District of Indian River County (SDIRC) has dragged its feet on this issue when raised in the past and claimed banning these images constitute “freedom of expression” violations. With NASCAR, the military branches and many other organizations taking a stand, now is the time for our schools to follow suit.

Please write a letter to our school board by Monday, June 22^nd asking them to ban the Confederate Flag in our schools. I have included the emails for all the School Board Members (Laura Zorc, Mara Schiff, Jackie Rosario, Teri Barenborg and Tiffany Justice) and the Superintendent (Dr. David Moore) below. PLEASE take a few minutes to send a letter and be part of the change needed in our schools!

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** VIRTUAL STATEWIDE TOWN HALL - TONIGHT
A Conversation on Racial Justice
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** DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES!
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We are excited to announce that we have two Indian River residents who have qualified as Democratic candidates for the Florida State Legislature!

Al Griffiths is running against Erin Grall for State Representative Seat in District 54. Scot Fretwell is facing off against Debbie Mayfield to represent District 17 in the Florida Senate.

You can go to Facebook and search for “YoucanvoteforAl” to find Al Griffiths’ Facebook page (website coming soon).

You can go to Facebook and search for “fretwellforfl” to find Scot Fretwell’s Facebook page or go to his website at: www.fretwellforfl.com ([link removed])

Both Al and Scot will be on the November 3^rd ballot.

Jim Kennedy is also running for the U.S. House seat in Congressional District 8 against Bill Posey. His FB page is Jim Kennedy for Congress and his website is www.kennedyforcongress.com ([link removed])




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** WHAT ARE WE WORKING ON?
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Our Chair, Adriana de Kanter, provides an update on what our DEC has been working on for the past year below.

We set a goal for 2020 to get 2,000 more Democrats to register to Vote by Mail and 2,000 more Democrats to vote since data showed us that 10,000 of our (then) 31,000 Democrats had stayed home in 2018 and didn’t vote. This was one-third of our Democrats.

We took these 2,000 goal numbers to our annual DEC retreat and made them our official goals and our mission. We then formed a Precinct Action Committee that would train our precinct captains on getting warm and new Democrats to Vote by Mail and we formed a Data Team that was responsible for fulfilling all VAN data requests asked for by the PAC.

The Data Team created pre-filled out vote-by-mail forms (approved by the SOE) by precinct for every warm and new Democrat not registered to VBM. Precinct Captains took these forms and canvassed. In January and February, we were first in the state on the canvassing dashboard for out-performing our expected percent of registrations and we received two $650 incentive awards from the Florida Democratic Party.

In March, with Coronavirus turning the country upside down, we pivoted strategies to charge our precinct captains with mailing out the pre-filled out forms. For those precincts with no captains, Stacey Klim, our Operations Coordinator, sent out the letters.

Once this was underway, the PAC and Data Team quickly saw that we needed to virtual phonebank, as well. We developed a script for VBM. We developed a training team, a training PPT, and a telephone trainer who demonstrated four permutations of possible phone call scenarios. We trained our 26 precinct captains first via Zoom.

While precinct captains trained, we identified volunteers who wanted to phone bank (by precinct), Club members (by precinct), and issued a call for volunteers to phone bank in our weekly newsletter. Ultimately, 100 volunteers stepped forward to take our Zoom training over a five-week period. We will be training 15 more volunteers next week.

While people were being trained, the Data Team prepared Virtual Phone Banks for each precinct team to call. As we had the capability to text, we allowed precinct captains integrate texting to close out the final round of “calls.” As of June 9^th, we have made over 5200 contacts to warm and new Democrats who are not registered to VBM. We are closing out all our precincts in the next week and we are beginning to call over 6,000 Hot Dems by Precinct.

As you can see, our DEC has made tremendous progress this year and we have worked very hard! Thank you to everyone who has volunteered their time to work toward our goals and reach out to voters. 2020 is the Election of our Lifetime and we will win!



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** DEMOCRATIC CLUB UPDATE
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The first Zoom Democratic Club meeting was a success! The Club will continue to use Zoom for its upcoming meeting on Wednesday, July 15^th at 6 p.m. Jim Kennedy, the Democratic candidate for U.S. House of Representatives, District 8, will be the guest speaker. He is opposing incumbent Bill Posey. The Zoom meeting link will be sent out shortly before the meeting date.

Additionally, Mr. Kennedy is hosting his own virtual “Listening Tour of Indian River” on Thursday, June 25th at 6 p.m. He wants to hear from you, the issues that you are facing or have concerns about. If you are Democratic Club member, keep a watch out for the Zoom meeting link. If you aren’t a member, but want to attend the event, please contact Claudia Martino via email


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INDIAN RIVER COUNTY SHERIFF’S RACE
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As many of you may know, Florida is a Closed Primary state. That means only voters of a particular party can vote in a race filled with one party candidates. Closed Primary’s strengthen party unity. This is the case in the Indian River County Sheriff’s Race for the August Primary. Only Republicans will be allowed to vote for a new Sheriff. There will be one Republican winner in August. That winner will go on to the November election against an NPA who is running.

Registered Democrats in Indian River County will not be allowed to vote in the Sheriff’s race. This is a statewide policy that we need to work on changing so a minority of voters (Republicans) do not shut out the majority of voters (Democrats and NPAs) in making critical decisions for their counties.


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** IF YOU HAVEN’T DONE IT YET– SIGN UP TO VOTE BY MAIL!!!
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If you haven’t signed up to Vote By Mail, go to the Florida Democratic Party website [link removed] and sign up! The FDP website is keeping track of VBM requests through their online tool. It gives us a clearer picture of how many Democrats in Indian River County are signing up. Here is a handy graphic that shows you the benefits of Vote By Mail.

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** DEMOCRATIC FACEMASKS
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We still have Democratic Facemasks! Lovingly made by a fellow Democrat, they are being sold for $10. Contact our office if you want one at:


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** BIDEN GEAR
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** We finally have some Biden gear in our office! Currently we have:

Yard signs $10
Bumper stickers (rectangle and oval) $2
T-shirts $15
Baseball caps – SOLD OUT
Buttons $1

If you would like to pick us some Biden gear from the office, Stacey will be in the office on Wednesday and Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Just knock on the door and she will meet you outside as our office is still closed to visitors.
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** DEMOCRATIC HEADQUARTERS UPDATE
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The FDP is continuing to authorize DECs, Clubs and caucuses to meet virtually. However, they updated the policy to allow local Democratic party offices to open, if they choose, but the in-person meetings should be implemented using social distancing and business should be conducted swiftly and limited to essential business.

COVID cases are on the rise in Indian River County, like the rest of Florida. The Democrats of Indian River Headquarters will remain closed for in-person meetings within the office space. We will continue to undertake essential activities with Operations Coordinator Stacey Klim on Wednesdays and Fridays 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. Democrats coming to the office should knock on the door, social distance, wear a facemask, and provide their own hand sanitizer. Thank you as we continue to look after the safety of our fellow Democrats.


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** COVID-19
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Indian River County currently has 284 cases and 12 deaths. The number of cases is increasing both in our county and in the state at a high rate. Social distance and wear a mask!

To stay up-to-date on the cases of Covid-19 in Indian River County and the State of Florida, click on the link below. Updates are made every day at approximately 11 a.m. EST.

[link removed]


Indian River County has created a website dedicated to the Covid-19 virus that contains numerous resources and county information. You can access this information by going to: [link removed]


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That’s all folks. Stay healthy!!!
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Democratic Executive Committee of Indian River County
2345 14th Ave.
Suite 7
Vero Beach, FL 32960
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