Friend,

This past week, Michigan held a successful election in the midst of a pandemic. What largely made it safe and accessible to millions of voters was mail-in voting. 64% of ballots cast in last Tuesday’s primary were absentee ballots.

Six weeks from now, people across the country will begin early voting in the presidential election.¹ But as we speak, Donald Trump’s hand-picked U.S. Postmaster General is intentionally slowing down mail delivery across the country. And Senate Republicans are refusing to include funding for either the USPS or election assistance in this next round of COVID-19 aid.

Sign the petition demanding the U.S. Senate fund the U.S. Postal Service, as well as state and local election officials to ensure voters are not disenfranchised in one of the most consequential elections in our country’s history.

While Michigan’s primary served as a generally successful test run for November’s general election, our local election clerks didn’t end up having the capacity to send out mail-in ballots quickly enough to meet demand. Too many people ended up having to go in-person because they didn’t get their ballots in time.

And we know that a presidential election will result in massive voter turnout, well beyond the number of ballots our clerks processed this past week. It’s a whole new scale of complicated logistics, which needs funding in order to work well for people casting ballots in a crucial general election. This is a test of our democracy.

Our local election clerks must have the ability to start processing ballots before Election Day, they must have the funding they need to manage an increase in mail-in voting, and we must fully fund the U.S. Postal Service so that absentee ballots are delivered to voters and clerks on time.

As the Lansing, MI clerk said, if we don’t start planning now, “we’re in trouble.”²

Michigan is one of a handful of critical battleground states in the upcoming presidential election. Among those are Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which appear far less prepared. Just look at this headline following Wisconsin’s April 7 primary election:

In Milwaukee, where at least 77% of the population is Black or Latinx, state election officials reduced the number of polling locations from 182 down to just 5, specifically disenfranchising voters of color.³

That’s unacceptable. And now, we are less than three months away from Election Day—and just six weeks away from people casting the first votes of the 2020 general election.

The House of Representatives passed an aid package months ago, the Heroes Act… and now it’s up to the Senate to act quickly.

Sign the petition demanding the U.S. Senate fund the U.S. Postal Service and election assistance as we prepare for our first presidential election held during a pandemic.

We cannot allow Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to undermine our ability to run a safe and fair election. We must fight to expand our democracy, not go backwards.

Thank you,

Rashida