This article originally appeared on ProPublica.org, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom.
Vote by Mail News
The U.S. Postal Service stopped updating the national change of address system for three weeks in August, leaving more than 1.8 million records unprocessed in that period. In most states, the address database is used as a guide to keep voter rolls up-to-date. (TIME)
The New York City Board of Elections is reprinting and resending nearly 100,000 absentee ballots after voters in Brooklyn received the wrong return envelopes. If signed, the ballots inside would have been invalidated. The governor says that the city should only resend the envelopes, not the ballots. (Gothamist/WNYC, New York Daily News)
President Donald Trump’s campaign sent a letter to Republican members of county election boards in North Carolina, urging them to ignore a recent court decision that expands access to mail-in voting. “The Democrats are trying to undermine the election process through backroom shenanigans,” the letter read. (WRAL)
Some absentee voters in Illinois are jumping the gun and showing up at the polls for early voting before their ballots arrive in the mail. (WICS/WRSP, Chicago Tribune)
Iowa poll workers can start opening ballot envelopes on Oct. 31 to relieve pressure on Election Day, under a new emergency declaration from state lawmakers. (Des Moines Register)
Election workers in Michigan will get an extra 10 hours of prep time for opening envelopes, starting Nov. 2. (Detroit Free Press)
Kentucky officials are working on a standard ballot curing system so voters can fix mistakes on their absentee ballots this November. (WUKY)
Hundreds of North Carolina absentee ballots have already been sent back to voters because of missing witness information. (ABC News)
The pandemic-era shift to voting by mail is creating an “administrative nightmare” for election officials in New Mexico. (Santa Fe New Mexican)
More than 3,000 New Hampshire voters were locked out of tracking their ballots online because their birth years had defaulted to 1964 in a state database. (Concord Monitor)
New York state unveiled new absentee ballot envelopes featuring a large red “X” on the signature line, in response to problems reported in the June primary. (Gotham Gazette)
In Virginia, around 1,400 absentee voters received duplicate ballots as election workers rushed to fulfill requests. (Washington Post)
Some Charlotte, North Carolina-area voters are getting inundated with absentee ballot applications and mailing duplicate requests to their local elections offices. (13 News Now)
After a string of errors, Utah election officials are keeping a close eye on private vendors printing out absentee ballots. Democratic Party voters in one clerk’s county received GOP ballots and vice versa during the June primary. Now, the clerk said, “I’m in communication with [the printer] probably four or five times a day.” (Salt Lake Tribune)
Pandemic Voting
Some anxious Washington state voters have registered to vote or made change of address requests multiple times, which slows down the process. (Crosscut)
The Center for Public Integrity and Stateline released data for polling place locations across 30 states since 2012 to help journalists and advocates study voting accessibility. (Center for Public Integrity)
For 38 million Americans with disabilities, the pandemic has made voting more inaccessible, especially for people who need help filling out a physical ballot or using voting machines. (The New York Times)
A group started by NBA star LeBron James has signed up 10,000 people to volunteer as poll workers in Black districts around the country. (The New York Times)
Testing of Georgia’s new voting system has been halted temporarily while the state resolves issues with how candidates’ names are displayed on voting machine screens. (Georgia Public Broadcasting)
Jefferson County, Kentucky is moving forward with plans to expand the number of polling locations from 8 to 20. (Courier-Journal)
A New York state bill that would allow online voter registration is unlikely to pass in time for the general election. (Gotham Gazette)
The new county clerk in Harris County, Texas is on a mission to avoid long lines and other issues that hampered voting in the March primary. (Texas Monthly)
Milwaukee Republicans say that having mascots at early voting locations in sporting arenas constitutes illegal electioneering. (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
What’s Happening With Elections in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania’s voting website has experienced technical problems recently, preventing voters from registering and checking other election-related services. The secretary of state says there’s no “malicious activity” and that a team is working on a fix. (Penn Live)
Some voters in Western Pennsylvania reported problems getting through on the phone to local elections offices. (PostIndustrial)
A laptop and memory sticks used to program Philadelphia voting machines were stolen from a warehouse. The laptop was disabled remotely and did not have election material on it, an official said. (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
GOP state legislators are moving forward with a plan to investigate the presidential election, giving lawmakers “the authority to subpoena election officials, the U.S. postal service and examine aspects of the election, even while voting and counting are in process.” (The York Daily Record)
At the debate Tuesday night, Trump renewed his false claim that officials in Philadelphia threw observers out of a polling place. (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Luzerne County, Pa., officials say they acted quickly when they discovered that a temporary elections worker had improperly discarded nine mail-in ballots to cover up a mistake. But it was “wildly improper” for the Justice Department to announce an investigation into the matter, legal experts say. (Times Leader, The Washington Post)
Trump has used the discarded ballots in Pennsylvania, and the Justice Department’s investigation into them, to make unfounded claims about voter fraud. (CNN)
Private Funding for Election Administration
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg gave $300 million in grants to two organizations to be used for election administration, but a conservative group is suing to block the funding in Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. (The New York Times)
Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger offered grants to local elections officials in jurisdictions formerly covered by the Voting Rights Act. He’s already started giving out the funds, awarding a $250,000 grant to a Texas county, which also received a $1.8 million grant from the Center for Tech and Civic Life. (The Hill, TPR, Valley Morning Star)
New York City joined a host of other New York state municipalities seeking private grant funding to defray the cost of holding an election during a pandemic. (The Wall Street Journal)
The Latest on Misinformation
Ongoing court battles and misleading claims about mail-in ballot fraud seem to be taking a toll on voters. More said they’ll be casting ballots in person, in a recent poll. (NPR)
The FBI is investigating a Russian group posing as an independent media outlet to target right-wing social media users. (Reuters)
Right-leaning YouTube channels are spreading misinformation about mail-in voting, raising questions about the platform’s ability to enforce its own rules. (Media Matters)
An unverified video accusing Rep. Ilhan Omar of voter fraud was part of a “coordinated disinformation campaign,” researchers say. (The New York Times)
The White House lit into FBI Director Christopher Wray this week after he told a congressional panel there was no evidence of a coordinated national voter fraud effort, undercutting claims by the president. (Reuters)
Trump claimed without evidence this week that states cannot count mail-in and absentee ballots accurately, and also tweeted misleading information about Brooklyn’s mail ballot debacle. (Twitter)
Russia is spreading disinformation about mail-in voting in the U.S. as Trump continues to attack it, intelligence officials say. (The New York Times)
Election Legal Battles
Trump’s campaign has assembled a massive legal network to monitor the election and oversee the deluge of mail-in ballots expected this year. (Politico)
A top lawyer for the Trump campaign got his start working for Democrat Al Gore’s presidential campaign. (WFAE)
A review of 90 state and federal voting lawsuits has found judges are “broadly skeptical” of GOP arguments that mail voting should be limited due to fraud concerns. (Washington Post)
Cassandra Wilson holds up a voter registration form and voter registration drive flyer in downtown Clarksdale days before her first drive.
CLARKSDALE — Frustrated by the response of elected officials after the pandemic slowed her business, Cassandra Wilson has used her down time for something she’d never done before: registering Delta residents to vote.
Wilson, the 35-year-old mother of three whose taxi and tourism business went from more than 50 rides a week before the pandemic to zero, was not qualified to receive COVID-19 relief funds.
She blamed the lack of federal, state and local government leadership to ensure the financial security for people in the Mississippi Delta, where the pandemic has heightened economic and health disparities.
“I felt like a lot of little people kind of got left out the loop,” Wilson said. “If you didn’t fall on the right end of the spectrum, you lost your house, you lost everything because of these big people who could not relate to everyday, average working people who were born into poverty. There are households around here with two full-time, 40-hour working people who are barely able to stay above water.”
She wanted to change how politicians’ decisions affected her life and those around her. So with the challenge of prohibitive voting laws and a deadly pandemic, she initiated the first step: registering people to vote.
In June, Wilson set up a tent and a table on a Clarksdale street with voter registration packets, snacks, pens, masks, and sanitizers laid across the tables. Whether residents walked up to register or drove through, each individual received masks and sanitizer. With her taxi business at a halt, she decided to drop registration packets off to others who could not attend the drive due to work, she said.
She took off from work at her other full-time job, sacrificing income to work on these voter registrations drives. With help from her 13-year-old daughter and 12-year-old niece, the trio has helped 20 people register to vote so far across three Delta towns: Lula, Friars Point and Clarksdale.
Wilson’s goal is to get 200 people registered ahead of the Oct. 5 registration deadline.
One challenge Wilson has experienced is a lack of education around government and the voting process prevents people from voting.
“I think this young lady was maybe like 22 years old and she asked me, ‘What is voting? Who do you vote for?’ and I love that,” Wilson said of a registrant at one of her drives. “(I said), ‘This is how you vote, this is why you vote’ … We have a lot of that in the Delta.”
More than 23,000 people reside in Coahoma County, which has about 15,000 eligible voters. But voter turnout has remained fairly low. For example, in the March primaries, only 23% of eligible voters cast a vote, according to data from the Circuit Clerk’s office.
Ray Sykes, chair of the Coahoma County Democratic Party, said he’s heard “no one is coming out” to the polls because community members fear going grocery shopping, church and gathering in large groups.
Despite this, he expects a record turnout, but he said it falls on the local leaders to get folks out.
“Elected officials have a duty to push the turnout,” Sykes said. “Pastors have a duty to get the public involved.”
Some Delta-based political leaders expressed more concern with getting people to the polls rather than voter registration, especially now during a pandemic.
“Everyone wants to press voter registration … which is great. I’m not knocking it. The real problem is getting people out to vote,” said David Rushing, chair of the Sunflower County Democratic Party. “We’re under-resourced, and the state is under-resourced.”
But Mississippi doesn’t make it easy for people to vote.
The state has some of the most restrictive voting laws in the nation, and is one of only six states which has not taken action to make voting safer during the pandemic. For instance, Mississippians must provide an excuse in order to vote early.
In July, Gov. Tate Reeves signed a bill into law stating people could only vote early during the pandemic for two reasons: if they are under a physician-imposed quarantine or providing care for a dependent under quarantine.
“It’s not the intent (of the legislation) to make it harder to vote,” Senate Elections Chair Jennifer Branning, R-Philadelphia, told Mississippi Today.
To register to vote, an individual must be 18 or older, a resident of Mississippi, and cannot be convicted of disenfranchising crimes. On Election Day, voters must present a Mississippi voter ID, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
Pam Shaw, a longtime Democratic political strategist and president of P3 Strategies, said it should be incumbent on circuit clerks and county supervisors to create innovative and safer ways to do voting. She suggested creating curbside voting and expanding voting hours in the weeks prior to the election.
“You do it in a way that does not compromise staff of the clerk’s office and the people who come,” Shaw said. “If you say, five days before, or two weeks before, it gives them time. … It gets rid of all of the people who may be hesitant and eases the burden you’re going to have on Election Day.”
But by taking matters into her own hands — battling a public health crisis, small town politics and what many call modern-day voter suppression — Wilson said she hopes that her small efforts will make an impact during the upcoming election, even if just one person goes to the polls because of her work.
“I just want to see a better Clarksdale, want people to do better, especially African Americans,” Wilson said. “We don’t know how this election is going to go in November, but I can tell you one thing — it’s going to be very difficult for us to go to the polls the way we used to.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Cassandra Wilson holds up a voter registration form and voter registration drive flyer in downtown Clarksdale days before her first drive.
CLARKSDALE — Frustrated by the response of elected officials after the pandemic slowed her business, Cassandra Wilson has used her down time for something she’d never done before: registering Delta residents to vote.
Wilson, the 35-year-old mother of three whose taxi and tourism business went from more than 50 rides a week before the pandemic to zero, was not qualified to receive COVID-19 relief funds.
She blamed the lack of federal, state and local government leadership to ensure the financial security for people in the Mississippi Delta, where the pandemic has heightened economic and health disparities.
“I felt like a lot of little people kind of got left out the loop,” Wilson said. “If you didn’t fall on the right end of the spectrum, you lost your house, you lost everything because of these big people who could not relate to everyday, average working people who were born into poverty. There are households around here with two full-time, 40-hour working people who are barely able to stay above water.”
She wanted to change how politicians’ decisions affected her life and those around her. So with the challenge of prohibitive voting laws and a deadly pandemic, she initiated the first step: registering people to vote.
In June, Wilson set up a tent and a table on a Clarksdale street with voter registration packets, snacks, pens, masks, and sanitizers laid across the tables. Whether residents walked up to register or drove through, each individual received masks and sanitizer. With her taxi business at a halt, she decided to drop registration packets off to others who could not attend the drive due to work, she said.
She took off from work at her other full-time job, sacrificing income to work on these voter registrations drives. With help from her 13-year-old daughter and 12-year-old niece, the trio has helped 20 people register to vote so far across three Delta towns: Lula, Friars Point and Clarksdale.
Wilson’s goal is to get 200 people registered ahead of the Oct. 5 registration deadline.
One challenge Wilson has experienced is a lack of education around government and the voting process prevents people from voting.
“I think this young lady was maybe like 22 years old and she asked me, ‘What is voting? Who do you vote for?’ and I love that,” Wilson said of a registrant at one of her drives. “(I said), ‘This is how you vote, this is why you vote’ … We have a lot of that in the Delta.”
More than 23,000 people reside in Coahoma County, which has about 15,000 eligible voters. But voter turnout has remained fairly low. For example, in the March primaries, only 23% of eligible voters cast a vote, according to data from the Circuit Clerk’s office.
Ray Sykes, chair of the Coahoma County Democratic Party, said he’s heard “no one is coming out” to the polls because community members fear going grocery shopping, church and gathering in large groups.
Despite this, he expects a record turnout, but he said it falls on the local leaders to get folks out.
“Elected officials have a duty to push the turnout,” Sykes said. “Pastors have a duty to get the public involved.”
Some Delta-based political leaders expressed more concern with getting people to the polls rather than voter registration, especially now during a pandemic.
“Everyone wants to press voter registration … which is great. I’m not knocking it. The real problem is getting people out to vote,” said David Rushing, chair of the Sunflower County Democratic Party. “We’re under-resourced, and the state is under-resourced.”
But Mississippi doesn’t make it easy for people to vote.
The state has some of the most restrictive voting laws in the nation, and is one of only six states which has not taken action to make voting safer during the pandemic. For instance, Mississippians must provide an excuse in order to vote early.
In July, Gov. Tate Reeves signed a bill into law stating people could only vote early during the pandemic for two reasons: if they are under a physician-imposed quarantine or providing care for a dependent under quarantine.
“It’s not the intent (of the legislation) to make it harder to vote,” Senate Elections Chair Jennifer Branning, R-Philadelphia, told Mississippi Today.
To register to vote, an individual must be 18 or older, a resident of Mississippi, and cannot be convicted of disenfranchising crimes. On Election Day, voters must present a Mississippi voter ID, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.
Pam Shaw, a longtime Democratic political strategist and president of P3 Strategies, said it should be incumbent on circuit clerks and county supervisors to create innovative and safer ways to do voting. She suggested creating curbside voting and expanding voting hours in the weeks prior to the election.
“You do it in a way that does not compromise staff of the clerk’s office and the people who come,” Shaw said. “If you say, five days before, or two weeks before, it gives them time. … It gets rid of all of the people who may be hesitant and eases the burden you’re going to have on Election Day.”
But by taking matters into her own hands — battling a public health crisis, small town politics and what many call modern-day voter suppression — Wilson said she hopes that her small efforts will make an impact during the upcoming election, even if just one person goes to the polls because of her work.
“I just want to see a better Clarksdale, want people to do better, especially African Americans,” Wilson said. “We don’t know how this election is going to go in November, but I can tell you one thing — it’s going to be very difficult for us to go to the polls the way we used to.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Most political analysts define “swing voters” as those who swing their support from one party to the other between election cycles – determining winners and losers in the process.
Meanwhile, by contrast, pundits often portray Black Americans as an undifferentiated mass – loyal Democrat-supporting foot soldiers who will execute their mission for The Team on Tuesday as long as some preacher provides the right marching orders on Sunday.
If these depictions have not already expired, they are certainly growing stale. Having studied electoral trends for decades, we can tell you that those undecided voters of the past are an endangered species – in the Midwest and elsewhere. These days, the only choice that most Americans make – indeed, the choice that typically “swings” the election outcome — is whether to vote at all.
That brings us to the characterization of Black Americans as Democratic loyalists.
Our new survey of 1,215 African Americans in battleground states – Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, North Carolina and Georgia – reveals that while those over 60 remain among the most reliable of Democratic voters, and those between 40-59 are still pretty locked in as well, those under 30 (whom we oversampled to comprise half of our sample) are anything but.
Black church members are seen as key to a candidate’s election victory; here, Governor Bill Clinton and Senator Al Gore attend service at the Olivet Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio during the Clinton-Gore 1992 campaign. Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Not sold on Biden
Only 47% of those Black Americans under 30 years old that we surveyed plan to vote for the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden. That’s roughly the same percentage who have anything positive to say when asked what “one or two words come to mind” about the former vice president.
Cathy Cohen, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago who studies Black youths’ political views, summed up this attitude in a recent podcast: “They’ve seen the election of Black mayors, they’ve seen the election of the first Black president, and they’ve also seen that their lives have not changed.”
But survey respondents of all stripes tend to wildly overestimate their intention to vote. Indeed, about half of our Black survey respondents under 30 say they don’t often vote because it “doesn’t make a difference,” providing a somewhat more realistic estimate of the percentage who will probably just stay home – and not search for a stamp to mail in their ballot, either.
And that number does not even take into account the turnout-depressing effects of voter suppression efforts taking place across the country, the pandemic or the heavy distrust of mail-in voting that young Black people tend to express. Only 64% of young people in our sample say they trust the state to report their vote accurately, and only 30% say they plan to take advantage of mail-in voting.
Biden is courting the Black vote – here, he’s at the Bethel AME Church in Wilmington, Delaware on June 1, 2020 – but fewer than half of young Black Americans surveyed in battleground states say they will vote for him. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
Not sold on the Democratic Party
Such cynicism on the part of young Black Americans is reflected in the lukewarm feelings they tend to have toward the Democratic Party more generally.
Only 47% of them say that the party is welcoming to Black Americans, and only 43% say they trust Democrats in Congress to do what’s best for the Black community. Perhaps most strikingly, unlike their older counterparts, only half of those under 30 view the Democrats as any better than the Republicans on these scores.
In both the survey responses and in the focus groups we conducted of young Black Americans in these same states, we heard repeated frustration toward what they view as a Democratic Party that expects their vote but doesn’t really do anything to deserve it other than claim to be “less racist” than the alternative.
As one of our focus group respondents put it, “I think at the end of the day, they all have the same agenda.”
In short, it appears that for Black America, the future is not necessarily “blue.” Electorally speaking, it is not necessarily anything at all. Moving forward, young Black Americans may be the real “swing voters” in the only way that term really makes much sense anymore.
Marissa Pittman, right, is a 17-year-old senior at White Station High School who won the National Civil Rights Museum’s student Freedom Award for her work in educating young women of color about politics and running for office.
This article was originally published on Chalkbeat
Marissa Pittman wants to see more politicians at career fairs. As a high school senior in Memphis, she can’t remember a time when politics was discussed in a way that encouraged young people to get involved.
“They always talk about being a doctor or an engineer and that’s it,” said Pittman, 17, a student at White Station High School. “This is about shifting the narrative.”
She started an organization called Pumps and Politics 901 to encourage young women of color to run for office and get involved in every level of the political process.
Her work earned her the Keeper of the Dream Award from the National Civil Rights Museum this week. The museum’s highest honor for students comes with $500, a trophy, a one-year family museum membership and two tickets to anywhere Southwest Airlines flies in the continental United States.
Pittman wants to reach young women ages 15 to 24 but for now, mostly focuses on high school students. She helped lead a student walkout at her school last year, part of a nationwide movement to call for gun reform and reduce school shootings. The event turned into a community fair of sorts with nonprofit groups presenting advocacy issues relevant to students.
“I did that so students would have the opportunity to channel their anger somewhere else instead of keeping it inside,” Pittman told Chalkbeat. “It’s all about building connections and empowering the community and that’s what I tried to center the walkout on and have youth voice.”
Chalkbeat sat down with Pittman after the museum’s award ceremony and student forum. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
What got you interested in politics?
Honestly, I can’t remember. But I’m going to attribute it to all the times I watched political shows and political stations like CNN and just listening to my parents talk with their friends about things going on in the community and their perspectives. I’m the oldest of three girls so I was nosy. I just hear about these things and I want to know.
PHOTO: Shelby County SchoolsMarissa Pittman
When you look at who is not represented equitably in politics, I realized the lack of diversity there. From there, I started looking at the city council website, the state legislature website and looking at local politicians from Memphis and I realized there was something wrong. There were few females of color in office.
What sparked the idea for Pumps and Politics?
I was really involved in Let’s Innovate Through Education (LITE), a student entrepreneurship program, my freshman year. They gave me some funding to try to solve a problem in my community. I started thinking about things that make me angry and the lack of political representation came up again.
I was at a student body meeting at White Station High School and I was the only female person of color. And White Station is supposed to be a microcosm of the city. If this was happening here, what’s happening everywhere else?
What kind of events do you do? What does the training look like?
The first event that I held was at City Hall and was sponsored by Councilwoman Patrice Robinson and my mentor state Rep. London Lamar was also present and now-state Sen. Katrina Robinson was present too. And we talked about the barriers and disparities that come up when people try to run for office.
From there it shifted to be more of a social media campaign because when people see politics and event it kind of scares them off. I realized that in order to make a difference you need to make it to where people can understand politics. So, now I’m working on a workbook for young women who want to run for office including information on mental health, advice about branding, making alliances, partnerships, and endorsements. Those are the “hidden rules” of getting into the political realm and changing the culture to where people think, “Oh, I could be a politician too.”
I look at national organizations and see what they’re doing and I’m trying to mimic that but also change it to where it’s impactful and not too time-consuming for people. I may still do events like an overnight training camp with the workbook and lectures from different female politicians too.
Were you learning any of this in school?
No. Well, not until 12th grade but I think that’s too late. I take AP Government and that’s really the only time you can take a government class. We’re being affected by government and policies as soon as we’re born. We talk about social studies in elementary and middle school but that’s not really in-depth. The most we hear about politics is during presidential election years for like 20 minutes. Any time anybody talked about politicians it was always negatively. You never hear about them doing great things like securing funding for a local project. I want students to know what the job of a politician entails. People always push engineers, but they don’t always push getting politically involved. I think that’s a big problem and could lead to lower voter turnout levels later on in life because people don’t really have the opportunity to learn.
“People always push engineers, but they don’t always push getting politically involved.”Marissa Pittman
What do you think schools should do to encourage students to make their voices heard?
Having discussions about political systems and integrating social studies into other subjects. Politics touches everything. Inviting politicians to career fairs, inviting nonprofit leaders and neighborhood organizers. Having those avenues available for students to explore. I think it’s about access, honestly.
Also creating space for students to express their political views is important — as long as they’re not hateful. At White Station, our principal does a very good job of that, but that’s not at every school. We have a political action club that just started.
Even at a “dress for success” event saying it’s not just for interviews but if you want to lead a political campaign, this is how you dress up or something like that. Little things add up and plant seeds in young people’s minds.
PHOTO: Shelby County SchoolsMarissa Pittman, far right, with other student winners (in front) and the National Civil Rights Museum’s honorees for Freedom Award (in back from left) Hafsat Abiola, Gloria Steinem, and John Legend.
Are there any education issues you’re rallying or organizing around?
Well, I don’t like vouchers. When we talk about Tennessee education, that’s something that always comes up because it’s going to be implemented in Memphis and Nashville. All the representatives in those two cities didn’t want it.
And the City of Memphis doesn’t give a dime to Shelby County Schools as far as public education and that angers me a lot. County commissioner Tami Sawyer’s mayoral campaign talked about that a lot and it wasn’t something I thought a lot about. That’s the great thing about having more women in the political process. They will bring things that you don’t really think about.
In state politics, voter suppression is something I’m really trying to figure out how I want to make an impact in next, especially going into college.
Will we see your name on a ballot soon?
Maybe! I don’t know. I think before I do the work, there’s so much that needs to be done to dismantle broken things in politics like voter suppression. I’m more focused on making the ballot box equal for people, especially non-violent felons who have been released. And just making elections more accessible to people. I don’t understand why there’s not early voting in every state.
A lot of people have been telling me that I need to run for school board (She can when she’s 18). I think we need a student representative on the school board and not just a token. The student congress doesn’t do as much as I would like them to see them do. They plan an event once a year, the Students Against Violence Everywhere (SAVE) conference, but there are more things that students should have a voice in.
I feel like in a lot of these systems, there’s an exclusion of the youth voice. They think we’re not old enough to have input. But we’re experiencing these things on a daily basis and we know what we’re talking about when it comes to things that teachers do and the quality of education in Shelby County Schools. I feel like we’re left out of that sometimes. They’ll come around with surveys for us to do, but are they really evaluating the surveys? Things like that.
I had a few girls texting me saying they were reading the Mueller report. Even if some girls don’t want to go into politics, I want them to be inspired. We may not be able to run for office right now, but we’ve got to get involved.
