Chop Wood, Carry Water 10/21
Hi, all, and happy Friday!
The midterms are 18 days away. But I, for one, will go cast my ballot—via dropbox—today. Remember: early voting helps your candidates. AND it helps you!
How?
Candidates are helped when voters who strongly support them vote early because when those votes are tabulated, those voters’ names will come off of the GOTV lists the campaigns refresh daily. Again: Folks who have voted come off of those lists! Who’s left? People who are either strong supporters but waiting to vote, folks who are wavering in their support, or folks who maybe won’t vote at all unless contacted.
The campaign, of course, has no way of knowing who falls into what category. So they must use their limited resources to reach out to them all.
Now imagine if all of the strong supporters voted early! The campaign could use 100% of its resources to reach out to wavering supporters or potential nonvoters! That’s literally more votes on the table that they can then scoop up.
Early voting helps great candidates win.
If you live in a contested district or state early voting also helps you. How? Again, when your vote has been tabulated you will come off of the lists campaigns pull every day to reach out to. That means no more phonebankers calling you, no more folks at your door, no more texts, and hopefully no more mailers!
A “win win,” as they say about early voting at Sister District.
Please share this information with your friends and family. (If you prefer it in quick video form I’ve got a one-minute Tiktok explaining it here.)
OK, all. Heads down, chins up, feet moving. We can do this.
Call Your Senators (find yours here)
Hi, I'm a constituent calling from [zip]. My name is ______.
I’m calling to ask the Senator to support S. 1275, the Family Violence Prevention and Services Improvement Act of 2021. This legislation would enhance and expand support, protection, and prevention for Americans affected by family violence, domestic violence, and dating violence. This bill has already passed the House and I’d like to see the Senate prioritize its passage as well. Thanks. [H/T]
Call Your House Rep (find yours here)
Hi, I'm a constituent calling from [zip]. My name is _______.
I’m calling to ask the Congressmember to o-sponsor and pass H.R. 8450, the Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids Act, to expand the availability of free meals for children in school and day care. Free school lunches have made an enormous difference in the lives of so many kids. We need to keep them going! Thanks! [H/T]
Extra Credit ✅
Send an email to Dennis McDonough, the Secretary of the US Dep’t of Veterans Affairs, at Denis.McDonough@va.gov and say (please personalize a bit):
I’m writing to thank the VHA for recognizing that abortion rights are at risk in our country. By ensuring access to abortion care for veterans in cases of rape, incest, and when the life of the pregnant person is endangered, you’ve gone some distance towards protecting them. But not far enough. The VHA should expand abortion access to all veterans, regardless of circumstances. Please do that.
Thanks.
[Name]
[City, State]
[H/T]
Get Smart! 📚
On Tuesday, October 25th at 12:00PM ET Big Tent’s Tent Talk will feature Jen Devor, President and co-founder of Better Civics, PA.
In the 2021 municipal and special elections, almost 900,000 registered Philadelphia voters did not vote. Better Civics, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to revolutionizing civic engagement and voter turnout through education, is working to change that. Better Civics partners with the Philadelphia community to create tools and resources that explain how government functions, encouraging individuals to be more civically engaged.
You will learn about Better Civics' ground game and how we can use their resources to help educate within our own communities! You’ll also have an opportunity to write letters to PA voters while you listen!
Request VoteRiders letters to Pennsylvania here in batches of 20. Need training? Watch here.
REGISTER: TUES 10/25 @12:00pm ET, JEN DEVOR, BETTER CIVICS
Win Races —call battleground states! 📲
Grassroots organizations like LUCHA, New Georgia Project, OnePennsylvania, Make the Road Action and CASA are hosting phone (and text) banks to make sure voters show up to the polls on November 8th and keep Republicans out of power.
Check out this linktree with all of their phonebank opportunities then please sign up to help them reach out to voters in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Georgia.
Win Races — Texting (and swiping!!)! 💻
➡️ If you’ve texted with Movement Labs before there’s a campaign into Florida this weekend that needs help. Sign up here. (If you’ve never texted with ML they won’t be able to accommodate you. But see below!)
➡️ If you haven’t texted with Movement Labs before (or if you have) they are working closely with Black Voters Matter, Texas Rising, and many more as they reach out to MILLIONS of voters to share polling information and ensure folks are ready to vote. These text banks will be super helpful for all voters to get the info they need to get their vote counted! And they will train you! They need MANY MORE volunteers! Sign up for a shift here!
➡️ Vote Riders has an upcoming event with Jack Black on Monday, October 24th at 7 PM ET! You can EITHER write letters or send texts!
➡️ Movement Labs has launched a new program reaching out to voters through DATING APPS! OMG! They are looking for folks 18-35 who want to get trained up on this and help reach out to voters—and daters— in AZ and WI. Multiple time slots available. Sign up here.
Resistbot Text (new to Resistbot? Go here! And then here.)
[to all 3 reps] [H/T] [Quick send text SIGN PPVBXM to 50409: ]
Last week, grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons announced their plan to merge and form a megacorporation. The move would combine Safeway, Ralphs, Smith’s, Fred Meyer, Vons, Kings, Haggen, Tom Thumb, Harris Teeter, Dillons, Star Market, Jewel-Osco, Shaw’s, and more into a single corporation.
The costs to consumers would be catastrophic. The profits for shareholders would be enormous. Please make sure the Federal Trade Commission blocks this anticompetitive and disastrous deal!
Grocery corporations are already taking advantage of inflation to artificially inflate food prices — prices have gone up 11% in the past year alone. The Kroger-Albertsons deal would leave Americans even more vulnerable to corporate price gouging. We’d likely see higher prices, employee layoffs and weaker supply chains.
Kroger and Albertsons are promising they’ll “spin off” some of the grocery stores into a separate entity that will supposedly compete with Kroger-Albertsons grocery stores. But we saw this move back in 2014 when Albertsons acquired Safeway. Unsurprisingly, the least profitable stores were “spun off”; many failed; and giant food deserts resulted, forcing people to travel long distances for groceries or even rely on food banks for food.
As your constituent I’m urging you to ask the FTC to thoroughly investigate supermarket giant Kroger’s proposed merger with Albertsons. A merger of the nation’s first- and fourth-largest supermarket companies is liable to enrich shareholders while harming virtually everyone else — particularly those communities most vulnerable to food deserts and grocery price hyperinflation. Thanks.
OK, you did it again! You helped save democracy! You’re amazing.
Talk tomorrow.
Jess
Thank you for your explanation of how early voting helps candidates in their GOTV efforts. I didn't know that, as I'm blithely texting away every day. So, we'll drop our ballots soon!
Dater-Voter made me chuckle.