Georgia is the first but won't be the last


** I'm sure you've heard the news out of Georgia.
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If not, here it is in a nutshell: The Georgia State Legislature passed, and Governor Kemp signed, a 96 page voter suppression bill ([link removed]) that, among other things:
* Makes our Comfort at the Polls program that hands out food and water to voters illegal
* Requires ID for absentee voting
* Reduces early voting times
* Effectively eliminates ballot drop boxes by only allowing them inside of polling places
* Allows the state Board of Elections to take over any county Board of Elections any time they want.

This law is one of the hundreds in the works in almost every state in the nation. Georgia may have been the first to pass such extreme voter suppression laws in this new wave, but they will not be the last.

So what can we do? First, contact your senators and tell them that we must pass the For The People Act. That won't change these laws for state elections, but it will mandate sweeping changes for federal elections which is absolutely critical.

Second, Spread The Vote is responding specifically to Georgia by hiring an additional Georgia field staffer and holding a massive Georgia volunteer recruitment drive to get as many IDs as possible before the Georgia state elections in 2022. That isn't much time, but we started in Georgia and we're going to keep fighting there as long as we have to. You can support us by donating ([link removed]) to help us hire a new Georgia staffer or signing up to volunteer ([link removed]) if you live in the state.

The path to voting rights has always been two steps forward and one step back in this country, but that doesn't mean we give up, we just put on sturdy shoes and keep marching.

Let's do this,
Kat
[email protected]
Help Us Fight Back in Georgia ([link removed])
[link removed]


** #Fund4Fines
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Spread The Vote works with a lot of currently and formerly incarcerated citizens across the country. Many returning citizens are released and expected to reenter society without the ID they need to make that possible. We work hard to help these citizens get IDs but we have frequently hit a huge roadblock: fines and fees. It is almost impossible to get out of incarceration without some amount of fines and fees owed but most states block a person's ability to get a driver's license until those fines and fees are paid ([link removed]) . This, of course, is a huge catch-22. In most places you need a car to get to work to pay your fines but you can't drive until your fines are paid.

This has been a long and frustrating battle for STV. We'd like to pay the fines but we currently have a list of clients with fines ranging from $100- $4000 adding up to tens of thousands of dollars that we can't cover with our current budget.

We live in a time when judges are sending people back to jail because they're too poor to pay their fines,
when every level of city government is making so much money from over ticketing and over fining communities of color that they turn a blind eye to the lives they are ruining in the process, and when unemployment and minimum wage barely cover living expenses, much less fines in the thousands of dollars.

We couldn't close our eyes to this so we came up with a solution: A permanent fund to cover the fines and fees that our clients have to pay to get a driver's license. This fund will be exclusively for the payment of fines in our ID states and will help people like Brenda, who gets $600 a month from Social Security and $80 a month in food stamps but keeps getting late fees piled on to her $1000 fine. Brenda cannot pay that fine on her own, but together we can help her.

Please consider donating to the Fund4Fines, or even becoming a monthly donor
bit.ly/fund4fines.
Forward to a friend. ([link removed])

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