Dear John,
Today is the first day of early voting!
I’m planning to vote this afternoon at my early voting poll site: the Park Slope Armory. Your early voting poll site is not necessarily the same as your regular polling place, so double check your early voting location here.
Early voting is open from Saturday October 24 through Sunday November 1, with hours that vary each day to make it possible for people with various schedules to vote. Poll sites are open 10-4 this weekend and next, early from 7-3 on Monday and Friday, and late from 12-8 on Tuesday and Wednesday (Thursday they are open 10-6, for variety’s sake I guess). Double check the hours for the day you plan to vote here.
If you are planning to vote absentee, you can return your ballot by mail, or by hand at the county Board of Elections office (in Brooklyn, 345 Adams Street) or at any poll site (early voting sites or any poll site on election day). If you plan to return your ballot by mail, send or hand it in ASAP so you can be sure it arrives on time before election day. You can track the status of your ballot here.
We fought hard together in 2018 to elect new leaders in Albany who brought early voting and other long-overdue reforms to voting in New York. And thank goodness we did, because early voting and the expanded absentee voting rules that Senators Zellnor Myrie, Alessandra Biaggi, and others helped us win are absolutely essential for an unprecedented presidential election during a pandemic.
Regardless of which method of voting you choose this year, I urge you to vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on the Working Families Party line (Row D). The WFP has been an important force for progressive change in New York, helping us to win paid sick leave, raise the minimum wage, and defeat the IDC. As a result of their work taking on the Democratic establishment to fight for working people, their ballot line is threatened this year by cynical defenders of the status quo (ok, mostly just one cynical defender of the status quo).
By voting for Biden and Harris on the WFP line, we can both help defeat Donald Trump and keep building the progressive movement in New York to win the changes we so urgently need, from a Green New Deal to health care for all of us.
Pledge to #VoteWFP here. Then make your plan to vote (if you haven’t already). Do it soon. And make sure everyone you know – and especially everyone you know in swing states – joins you. Our city, our democracy, and our planet depend on it.
Brad
