Our new head of Voter Protection, Jeremy Jones, is looking to expand the VoPro Team to not only cover all the Charlottesville precincts in November, but also hopefully to help out in some other key VA races across the state, so everyone who’s eligible to vote gets to do so.
Voter protection requires a lot of behind-the-scenes work, so there are many ways you can pitch in. The main three:
1. Observe polling place operations and use an online system to file reports of any problems with the State Democratic Party’s boiler room of lawyers ready to handle them. You don’t have to be a lawyer to do this! The only prerequisites are:
- Taking a 2-hour training session before Election Day (since it’s all about making sure the rules are followed, step #1 is having lawyers explain what the rules are!).
- On Election Day you must work either the entire long exhilarating day (5am to 8pm!) or a more moderately thrilling half-day shift, either 5am-1pm or Noon-8pm.
- Being able to keep your cool and speak diplomatically if any problem(s) should arise.
Two examples of issues last year’s team helped with:
- Explaining the new same-day registration and provisional voting rules to make sure that all such votes could be validated and counted.
- Dealing with a traffic accident in front of Tonsler Precinct that temporarily blocked voter access.
2. “Chase and cure” (remote work, flexible schedule over the six weeks of early voting) — after a bit of training, help voters fix problems with their mail-in absentee ballots so those ballots can be counted (e.g. when someone gives a PO Box mailing address rather than the required street address).
3. Help staff the Voter Protection Hotline (also remote) — answer problem report phone calls and then try to resolve those problems. This also requires training.
If you might be willing to get involved in these kinds of efforts, please contact Jeremy: hijeremyjones@gmail.com
We meet every Thursday 4-7pm at the Ix Art Park (on the Brazos Tacos lawn if nice weather, inside the restaurant when not-so-nice). Come when and for how long your schedule and mood dictate; it needn’t be every week or the entire three hours.
For the past three years, we’ve had many many dedicated people joining in. In 2022, we had 100+ volunteers who attended at least once to eat, drink, chat, and pitch in together to help our Democratic candidates win; many attended almost every week! If you’ve joined us before, please join us again. If you haven’t tried it yet, come on down and meet fellow Dems and enjoy yourself while working for a big win on November 7!
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.