Dear MoveOn member,
My name is Stacey Abrams. I'm writing to you to talk about one of the most critical issues facing our democracy today and to share my plan to fight back.
In 2018, I became the first Black woman in U.S. history to become a nominee for governor for a major party. I spent months traveling Georgia, meeting voters, hearing and learning from their experiences, and galvanizing communities around a progressive vision for our state. But, at the same time, my campaign had to fight a coordinated, blatant voter suppression campaign run by my Republican opponent, Brian Kemp, who was also Georgia's secretary of state and in charge of our election.
It was like running against a cartoon villain. During the race, he purged 1.4 million voters from the rolls, allowed 214 precincts to close under his watch, and held up the registrations of 53,000 voters, 80% of whom were people of color.
After that race, I was determined to make sure that what happened in my election wouldn't happen across the country and, most urgently, that the 2020 elections would not be decided by partisan, undemocratic power grabs.
That's why I launched Fair Fight 2020 to hire voter protection teams in 20 battleground states that will work with state Democratic parties and allies to ensure that every eligible voter can register, access a ballot, and cast a vote that will be accurately counted.
We need to hire these teams on the ground now so they can start building the infrastructure needed to protect the vote in 2020, and keep them there until every vote is counted.
Eddie, MoveOn members like you were with me from the beginning of my campaign, and I need you with me again now. Will you chip in $5 a month, split between Fair Fight 2020 and MoveOn's work to defeat Donald Trump and end Republican control of the Senate?
No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
Let's be clear: Georgia may have been the epicenter of voter suppression in 2018, but Republicans are using the same playbook all across the country.
Over the past 20 years, we have seen a dramatic, insidious constriction of the right to vote. It's no longer the use of fire hoses and literacy tests to keep out voters. Now, it is widespread, complex suppression that hides behind the idea that it is "race-neutral," when we know that voter suppression disproportionately impacts marginalized communities.
And since 2013, when the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, bad actors have been given carte blanche to undermine the most foundational principle of our democracy and keep more and more people out of the voting booth.
Voter suppression not only erodes every aspect of our democracy, it also crushes voters' sense of hope and reinforces the idea that one's vote doesn't matter.
I refuse to let the idea that one's vote doesn't matter take hold of our nation.
And that is where Fair Fight 2020 comes in. We are funding, training, and supporting voter protection teams on the ground in 20 states to safeguard our nation's sacred right to vote. We are also setting up hotlines in each of our target states so that anyone who witnesses any act of voter suppression can immediately report it and voter protection teams can take action.
We can't allow elections to be unfair, and we can't expect someone else to do this work for us.
I need your help to get this done, and MoveOn needs your help to build the largest election program in their 21-year history. Will you chip in $5 a month?
No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
Last week, we lost one of the great fighters for justice, Representative Elijah Cummings, and I was reminded of an impassioned speech he gave in Congress earlier this year. He said:
"I don't give a damn how you look at it, there are efforts to stop people from voting. That's not right! This is not Russia, this is the United States of America! And I will fight until the death to make sure that every citizen—whether they are Green Party, whether they are Freedom Party, whether they are Democrat, whether they are Republican, whoever—has that right to vote, because it is the essence of our democracy."
It is on each and every one of us to heed Rep. Cummings' words and take up this fight.
Our voices have to be heard for our democracy to work. Will you join me and chip in $5 a month to Fair Fight 2020 and MoveOn now?
No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
Thanks for all you do.
–Stacey Abrams
Want to support MoveOn's work? The MoveOn community will work every moment, day by day and year by year, to resist Trump's agenda, contain the damage, defeat hate with love, and begin the process of swinging the nation's pendulum back toward sanity, decency, and the kind of future that we must never give up on. And to do it MoveOn needs your ongoing support, now more than ever. Will you stand with MoveOn?
No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
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This email was sent to Eddie Alfaro on October 24, 2019. To change your email address or update your contact info, click here. If you'd like to receive less frequent emails from MoveOn, you can click here. To remove yourself from this list, click here.
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