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Friend, America made it through the 2020 election cycle, but not unscathed. Assessing the damage, especially in our five Deep South focus states, is the focus of our new report – Overcoming the Unprecedented: Southern Voters’ Battle Against Voter Suppression, Intimidation, and a Virus – which also lays out solutions for the future. Long before anyone in the United States had heard the term “COVID-19,” voting rights activists were gearing up for what was certain to be a tumultuous and high-profile election cycle in 2020. The stakes were high, and the vitriol and disinformation that lingered from the 2016 election had already damaged confidence in the country’s electoral infrastructure, long fraught with administrative problems and systematic efforts in many states – particularly in the South – to suppress voting by Black people and other communities targeted for disenfranchisement. When the coronavirus arrived, just as the spring primary season was heating up, no one, from election officials to voting rights groups, was prepared for elections to be held in the midst of a pandemic. Election officials struggled to recruit poll workers, find enough personal protective equipment (PPE) and keep up with an unanticipated flood of absentee ballots. Voting rights organizations had to scrap mobilization plans that were years in the making and adjust to a world where many of their most effective tools, such as in-person canvassing, were no longer safe. Our report describes the 2020 elections in five Southern states – Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi – with a particular emphasis on election administration problems; voter suppression; the efforts of voting rights organizations to mobilize voters and protect their votes; and the actions of extremists who sought to intimidate voters and spread disinformation. “No state covered in our report did enough to prevent voters from having to choose between their health and their participation in democracy,” said Margaret Huang, SPLC president and CEO. “Making matters worse, lawmakers in the Deep South are ignoring the obvious lessons of the 2020 elections and proposing new legislation designed to make voting even more difficult. They’re justifying these voter suppression proposals with new renditions of old lies about voter fraud.” Even under some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable, there were success stories to cherish in the 2020 election. Despite many obstacles, Deep South voters were resilient and turned out in record numbers in many parts of the region. Our Vote Your Voice initiative invested $12 million in funding innovative organizing projects by Black- and Brown-led groups in all five of our target states. These grantees made at least 75 million attempts to contact voters in the 2020 cycle and runoffs through phone calls, texting, social media, in-person canvassing and other activities. These achievements and more are detailed in the report, as are proposals for immediate and imperative legislative reform. We invite you to check out this summary article and the report itself, and to share the links widely within your networks. Important elections are happening year-round in the Deep South. We must continue to support informed and passionate voting rights advocates to counter the rising threats of voter intimidation, suppression and disenfranchisement. In solidarity, Your friends at the SPLC
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