On Your Mark, Get Set, Let’s Vote!
Today is the day! Ballots are being mailed out to registered California voters.
Casting a vote may not seem as important in a state where it’s all but certain Donald Trump will lose, but preventing another of his ilk from taking office and undoing the damage his minions have wrought depends on people sending a very clear message.
The GOP has been taken over by a cult, one whose beliefs include using government to enrich themselves, rolling back decades of victories in civil rights, and using law enforcement agencies to punish dissent. Oh, and let’s not forget decimation of the environment and social safety net.
Every Republican on the ballot shares responsibility for what’s going on, and they need to be “rewarded” accordingly. The time for rebuilding the dynamics of democracy will come after the stronghold of those who believe in superstition and fear falls under the wrath of the voters. (Yes, we will need to restore a multi-party system.)
There are important state and local issues on the ballot that will affect each and every one of us. If they weren’t important, entities wouldn’t be spending hundreds of millions of dollars to persuade us.
Need help with those issues? Not a problem. There are lots of ways to learn, and I’ll drop plugs for my Short and Sassy Voter Guide (with endorsements), and the 2020 Voter Guide (sans endorsements) for San Diego Indivisible Persist.
You can see the local Democratic Party’s candidates here, and --if you’re not sure who to vote against-- the local Republican Party’s slate. KPBS Voter Guide (to be posted on Oct 5), the California Courage Progressive Voters Guide and the League of Women Voters Edge are also good choices.
More than 21 million ballots were mailed state-wide, with 1.9 million headed for San Diego voters. They come return postage paid, and it is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL that the signature and date appear on the back of the return envelope.
Voting early is important. Early voting will be open at the Registrar of Voters during business hours and any of the 126 Mail Ballot Drop Off locations around the county from Oct. 6. to Nov. 3. (Be sure to check the location's hours online first.)
If you feel the need to vote in person (as in fill out your ballot or request a provisional ballot) polling places will be open for in-person voting for four full days, including November 3rd.
Completed ballots can be dropped off at any of the 126 Mail Ballot Drop Off locations around the county from Oct. 6. to Nov. 3. Be sure to check the location's hours online first.
There's a handy dandy map for drop off and in-person locations at the link below
https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/politics/decision-2020/where-to-drop-off-my-2020-ballot-in-san-diego-county/2414077/
Ballots are processed as they come in. Legislation passed in response to the pandemic allows for mail-in ballots to be processed and counted sooner than in previous years, up to 29 days before the election.
Returning ballots early means that officials have time to send them back if there are discrepancies, like missing or mismatching signatures.
The California Secretary of State’s Where’s My Ballot program provides voters the option of getting an alert by text, email or phone confirming that their ballot was received.
Here’s the link for the San Diego County Voter Registrar’s office, which has more information.
Finally, the pep talk, excerpted and totally ripped off from the Indivisible monthly email:
If we want to avoid helping Trump suppress the vote and demobilize his detractors, we have to be clear when we talk about this: Trump has not succeeded in rigging the election, and he hasn’t stolen it. No, what he’s is up to is he is trying to cheat. He’s doing this from a place of weakness, not strength. And he won’t get away with it.
Say it with us: Biden is winning. Every objective piece of information we have says that Biden isn’t just winning this election -- he’s blowing Trump out of the water. We’re not looking at a nail- biter election -- we’re looking at an utter rebuke of an utter failure of an incumbent president.
Say it with us: Trump is a loser. He’s doing what losers who are on their way to losing do: he’s trying to cheat. But this loser will never win -- we won’t let him. It is entirely in our power to stop him. And that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to do it by driving the largest turnout in U.S. history, and if we need to, we’re going to do it by mobilizing after the election to ensure every single vote is counted.
Say it with us: We can and will count every vote. We’ve held elections before, through crises and pandemics and wars. As Vanita Gupta, head of Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights puts it in a great op-ed on this, “We don’t expect Trump to welcome a fair contest. Trump is nothing if not a bully — and he could give a master class on sore losing. But the choice of who wins this year’s election is not his to make. It’s ours.” If we vote and if we demand that our votes count, we will win.
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Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com