Because we weren’t able to raise enough funds for an affordable local office, we’ll be sharing space with the joint Kaine-Biden office soon. Stay tuned for more on this development. We’ll be putting our funds toward student (college and high school) interns instead.
Outreach
Volunteering for Campaign Efforts and Voter Registration to Get Out The Vote (GOTV)
Cville Dems will resume our Thursday Get Out the Vote efforts at IX Park after the June 18 primary election, from June 27 through October 31. As during the past four years, we’ll send postcards with voting information to anyone who has registered since January 1, 2024, until voter registration ends.
[In the meantime, if your fingers are itching to start writing postcards, there’s a (unaffiliated with Cville Dems) group meeting on Mondays from 10-12 at the Dunlora Club House. For more information, contact Mary Farrell at 703-655-3867 or wmekmf118@gmail.com. Also, May 24, 1-3pm with Donna Shaunessey, mail to: shaunesey@hotmail.com.]
Once early voting starts in September, we’ll call and remind them of the different ways to vote in Cville. Then, hopefully, precinct captains will coordinate a door knock for each new voter. We hope to to coordinate with Albemarle County Dems to reach out to their new voters as well.
We’ll also be mailing postcards, making phone calls, and knocking on the doors of Cville voters who voted in the 2020 Presidential election but haven’t voted since, urging them to once again exercise their right to vote!
But…postcard writing is just one of the many things we do on Thursday nights. We coordinate weekly with campaigns to launch canvassors, and have phone banks and text banks. So…for one night each week, volunteers from Cville and Albemarle County can come together to do whatever volunteer activity they choose while enjoying the companionship of fellow Dems.
This year, we’ll also be working closely with Rural Ground Game to increase the Democratic voter turnout in the 5th District as well as other rural Congressional Districts. We’re not sure what they’ll call on us to do, other than phone banking, text banking, and postcard writing.
RIGHT NOW, we need:
- volunteers to register new voters all over the city—at farmers’ markets, senior living communities, City of Promise, UVA Move-in Day, and many businesses and restaurants. If interested, email Suzanne Michels, suzemichels@gmail.com
- volunteers at Cville Dems tables at all polling places on June 18. If interested, email Mary Ann Harris, harrisma49@gmail.com.
- volunteers to do issue-related text banking for Rural Ground Game to the 5th District and other rural Congressional Districts. If interested, email Mary Ann Harris, harrisma49@gmail.com.
Coming Soon – 2024 Campaign Efforts
Stay tuned for more information on our 2024 GOTV efforts, including our weekly meetings at IX Park (scheduled to resume June 27) where we will write postcards and send out canvassers to Cville and Albemarle County residents.
We’ll also be working with Rural GroundgameCharlottesville Democratic Party, Charlottesville Democratic Committee, Cville Dems, Charlottesville, Virginia, Democrats, Democratic, politics, Central Virginia, VA, political party, DPVA, Democratic Party of Virginia, Virginia Democratic Party to increase Democratic turnout throughout the 5th District by writing postcards and manning texting banks for them. Plan to join us and have fun doing this with friendly folks.
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Presidential Primary Early Voting Has Begun!
Early voting for the Presidential Primary is open now!
Voting Location
120 7th Street NE
City Hall Annex, Room 142
Charlottesville, VA 22902
Hours
Monday – Friday, 8:30am – 4:30pm
Saturdays – 2/24, 3/2, 8:30am – 5:00pm
Not open Monday, March 4.
More information
https://www.charlottesville.gov/431/Early-Voting
“Donut Forget to Vote” Saturday Morning 11/4 Event!
Work for Democratic Victories on November 7!
Local Option #1: Early In-Person Voting
Early Voting is happening now through November 4 at the Registrar’s Office in the City Hall Annex,120 7th St. NE, Room 142. Be sure to bring a valid-for-voting ID (see this overview and list of acceptable forms of ID). Hours of operation:
- Monday – Friday, 8:30am to 4:30pm, (Thursdays until 7:00pm)
- Next Saturday, October 28, and also Saturday, November 4, from 8:30am – 5:00pm
Note: Curbside voting from a car is available to anyone with a disability, limited mobility, or who is over age 65; just call 434-970-3250 when you arrive at the Registrar’s Office.
Whether you’re voting early or voting on Election Day, check now to make sure you’re registered; botched Republican “voter security” efforts mistakenly purged thousands of eligible voters. Check your own registration, and warn friends and family to check theirs too!
Helpful website pages:
• Voter Registration and Voting Information
• City of Charlottesville’s Interactive Precinct Map to find your polling place
Local Option #2: “Turn Out the Vote Thursdays”
No more work at Ix needed, we wrote and mailed approximately 7,500 postcards! This is far more than we’ve ever done before, and it happened due to:
- Superb organizing by Mary Ann Harris, Nancy Damon, and Suzanne Michels – huge kudos!
- Sincere gratitude to everyone who pitched in throughout the Summer and Fall by writing postcards and/or donating money to buy postcards and stamps.
So our Thursday at Ix work is done for this cycle, no more meet-ups at IX Park this Fall!
Now for the details about those 7500 postcards:
- 700 to new City of Charlottesville voters
- 1,800 to new Albemarle County voters
- 2,000 to City residents
- 500 for Rachel Levy in Louisa County
- 500 for Michael Feggans in Virginia Beach
- 1,000 for Susanna Gibson in Henrico County
- 1,000 for Lily Franklin in Montgomery County.
It was a pleasure spending time with old friends and getting to meet new friends — spending our Thursday afternoons together working to help elect the best candidates locally and statewide! We’re most definitely looking forward to sitting around the picnic tables in the Spring when the BIG 2024 presidential election cycle begins.
We hope most of you will join us for the big Sunday October 28 Canvassing push with Sen. Mark Warner at Pen Park! And… make sure to remind all your Dem-leaning friends, both City and County, of the importance of voting; we can’t take victory for granted, it’s all about turnout!
Local Option #3: Canvassing
We’re partnering with the Albemarle Dems to ensure we win all our local races; with several uncontested City races, it makes sense to shift some of our energy.
- State Senate: Incumbent Senator Creigh Deeds is favored to win our crucial Senate District 11, but the district has some very conservative areas, and we can’t be complacent if we’re going to keep this seat. His opponent, Philip Hamilton, is quite a piece of work; among other claims to fame, he’s publicly misgendered his own 12-year-old, claiming that school teachers had poisoned his child’s mind into being non-binary. And he favors schools outing gay students to their parents (see below in “Preaching Beyond the Choir”). This is not someone we want representing us; please donate to or canvass for (or both) the Deeds campaign!
- House of Delegates: Amy Laufer (our Albemarle County neighbor running in a competitive District #55 race, recently endorsed by Gabby Giffords’s Gun Safety PAC) and Katrina Callsen (running unopposed in our District #54).
- Charlottesville City Council: Natalie Oschrin, Michael Payne, and Lloyd Snook (running unopposed).
- Charlottesville School Board: Amanda Burns, Shymora Cooper, Chris Meyer, and Nicole Richardson (four candidates running unopposed for four open seats).
- Albemarle County Board of Supervisors: Bea LaPisto-Kirtley, Ann Mallek, and Michael Pruitt.
- Albemarle County School Board (ACSB): Rebecca Berlin, Judy Le, Ellen Moore Osborne, and Allison Spillman. A few notes about Allison’s race: she’s running against Meg Scalia Bryce, the daughter of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Bryce (a) said on 10/15 at an NAACP forum “not everybody agrees that there is systemic racism. And it has to be OK for people to disagree about that.” (She’s also very offended by the County’s anti-racist curriculum), and (b) is very concerned that the ACSB has been treating LGBTQ kids with respect and support. Although Allison has been closing the fundraising gap, Scalia Bryce is still ahead. We can’t let extremists like her (e.g. a fan of the Moms for Liberty book banners) start taking over our local schools (per Forward Albemarle, all her kids attend private schools). Please help Allison’s campaign any way you can, especially via donations and canvassing help.
If you’d like to canvass locally (it takes about 3 hours):
1. On a weekday, please email karencombs6522@gmail.com.
2. On a weekend, use SignUp Genius to participate in one or more of these coordinated canvasses:
Option #4 Non-local: Help Key VA Races with Time and/or Cash
Republicans control the House of Delegates and the Governor’s mansion, and Dems barely hold the Senate; if Republicans take the Senate, then Virginia will become Florida, which means forced childbirth laws, schools teaching whitewashed history, “don’t-say-gay” laws, and other measures to erase LGBTQ youth…we can’t let this happen!
Below is a list of the hottest “battleground races” for Senate and House of Delegate seats. Please please please:
SD 17 is enormous: Suffolk, Isle of Wight (including Franklin City), Portsmouth (part), Southampton, Brunswick, Greensville, Dinwiddie (part), Emporia, Chesapeake (part).
Note: past newsletters have highlighted other great candidates in close races, like teacher Schuyler Vanvalkenburg, tech entrepreneur and veteran Michael Feggans, long-time Democratic staffer Lily Franklin (for Delegate Sam Rasoul and Josh Throneburg), and more!
