Dear MoveOn member,
Do you care about climate change, economic justice, voting rights, and reforming our broken criminal justice system?
If we're going to make progress on any of the issues we care about, the most important thing we can do is ensure that all voters are able to register and vote—and that each of our votes are accurately counted.
But in America today, far too many people are denied the right to cast ballots and make their voices heard.
That's why after my Republican opponent Brian Kemp oversaw his own election and suppressed the votes of Georgians through malfeasance and incompetence, I launched the organization Fair Fight. Our mission is to fight voter suppression through legislation, organizing, and advocacy.
And now we are launching the Fair Fight 2020 initiative, a comprehensive plan to hire voter protection teams in 18 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 counted.
We need to get these teams on the ground now so they can start building the infrastructure needed to protect the vote in 2020. At the same time, MoveOn is preparing for the biggest election effort in its 21-year history. And to do it all, we need your help.
Will you chip in $5 a month, split between Fair Fight 2020's voter protection efforts and MoveOn's critical work to defeat Donald Trump and end GOP control of the Senate?
No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
This fight is personal for me, Eddie. The architect of voter suppression, my opponent Brian Kemp, took office after silencing the voices of Georgians. While overseeing his own election as the secretary of state, he purged 1.5 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. In the end, following extensive voter suppression, the race was decided by fewer than 55,000 votes.
While my election was an extreme example, voter suppression is nothing new. At our nation's founding, only white male property owners could vote. Later, Jim Crow poll taxes and violence denied Black Americans the right to vote. Now, voter suppression is more insidious, with superficially neutral rules enacted to disproportionately disenfranchise voters of color and low-income voters, including modern-day poll taxes, like the ones recently instituted in Florida, which make newly enfranchised voters pay court fines before they can vote.
When I ran for office, I knew what I would be up against. And I knew that the fight would not be fair. But, joined by Georgians of all backgrounds, we waged a historic fight and won more voters than any Democratic candidate in Georgia history. I am proud to be the first Black woman in U.S. history to become a nominee for governor for a major party. And I know that if we work hard, invest in new voters, and protect the vote in 2020, we will win.
What we need to do now is roll up our sleeves and fight to lift every voice and protect every vote, creating an America where the true winner, as decided by voters, wins in a fair fight—and in doing that, we can restore faith and trust in our democracy and our institutions, one election at a time.
That is why I launched Fair Fight. I am fighting for the integrity of the 2020 elections, while MoveOn fights to defeat Donald Trump and end GOP control of the Senate. And we need you now. Will you split a monthly donation of $5 between our organizations to help power our work?
No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
When politicians win office through voter suppression, democracy loses. And that poisons people's hope. It tells voters that our voices don't matter. It tells the worker who takes off half a day to stand in the rain and cast her ballot at an understaffed, far-away polling place that her voice doesn't matter. It tells the new citizen who's proud to become an American but who's stopped from registering to vote that he's not welcome in America. And it tells the voter purged from voter rolls that their voice is unwelcome in our democracy.
But in spite of all of the challenges that we face, I remain optimistic and hopeful.
I am optimistic because I know that here in Georgia, as well as in all 18 states that Fair Fight is targeting in 2020 and all across America, people will keep going door to door, fighting to register every eligible voter and count every vote.
I am optimistic because I believe in the work that MoveOn is doing to kick Trump out of office, stop Mitch McConnell and end Republican control of the Senate, finally pass voter protections at the federal level, and renew and restore the Voting Rights Act, which the Supreme Court gutted in 2013.
I'm optimistic because I'm in that fight, and MoveOn is in that fight. Will you join us and chip in $5 a month?
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.
PAID FOR BY MOVEON
This email was sent to Eddie Alfaro on October 22, 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment