John,

Today is National Voter Registration Day, and while federal midterm elections aren’t until next year, there are still thousands of local and municipal elections occurring throughout the country this November.

We’re seeing attacks on voting rights from every angle, from massive voter purges that kick hundreds of thousands of people off the voter rolls, to attacks on vote-by-mail.

A few weeks ago, Georgia carried out a purge of 478,000 voters, nearly 6% of the registered voters in the state. Georgia Senator Rev. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) issued a statement in response:¹

“Democracy is the political enactment of a spiritual idea that each of us has within ourselves the spark of the divine. We all have value, and if we all have value, we ought to have a voice in the direction of our country; we ought to have a vote.”

Fight back against voter suppression by checking your voter registration status or registering to vote at the National Voter Registration Day website.

And here’s another way to defend democracy: contact your governor.

In addition to voter purges, Donald Trump has announced he wants to get rid of vote-by-mail and voting machines due to unfounded claims of voter fraud, even though hand-counting ballots is more prone to errors and significantly more expensive than voting machines.²

Mail-in voting is extremely popular. It expands voting access and does not favor one political party over the other, according to multiple studies.

Mail-in voting increases access to the ballot for working people, seniors, and people with disabilities, and ensures military personnel serving overseas can cast their ballots. It reduces voter suppression tactics like intimidation at polling places. And it allows voters to research their ballot in the comfort of their own home before casting their vote.

Elections this year and next could be a turning point in deciding where we want to take the future of this country. Whether we want to allow dictatorial edicts to send troops to patrol our streets, masked ICE agents to kidnap our neighbors, and dark site detention camps that violate human rights. Whether we want to continue on the current trajectory of gutting the funding for human needs programs to pay for more tax breaks for the rich. Or whether we want to invest in programs that benefit us all, with the rich paying their fair share.

Together, let’s empower everyday people to make their voices heard.

Send a message to your governor now, urging them to stand up to the Trump administration and defend vote-by-mail.

Thank you for all you do,

Deborah Weinstein
Executive Director, CHN Action

¹ Amid Purge of GA Voter Rolls, Senator Reverend Warnock Calls for Restoration of Voting Rights Act
² Trump wants to stop states from voting by mail and using voting machines