It's 70 Days, Do You Know Where Your Voter Registration Is?

It's 10pm.  Do you know where your children are?

That line, traced back to a news broadcast in the 60's and carried forward for decades, is familiar to those of us of a certain age.  As you can see in the video below, it was uttered by anchors, guests, celebrities like Carroll O'Connor - all in a PSA attempt to remind parents that not much good could come of their children wandering around after dark.

And that's true, although when you are a kid, having your fun after dark time squashed by your parents is not cool.  Again, those of us of a certain age well remember the universal "get your ass home now" signal of the porch light coming on and having to dip out of a heated cul-de-sac game of Kick The Can.

Then you become a parent and realize the truth.  Fun you may have had, be damned.  Not knowing where something as precious as your child is, for even a millisecond, is simply not tolerable.  It sends a short circuit through the emotional electric system of the body.  Even if you are not a parent, but a decent person, you also understand that the potential for trouble increases sharply after dark when young ones are left to their own devices.

So parents were encouraged each evening to check.  OK, sure, maybe it felt like admonishment if you, in fact, did not know.  But again, precious things need to be monitored for safe keeping.

Which brings this allegory to its point.  Right now, 70 days out from the most important election of our lives, the question must be asked, and asked again about your most precious November belonging and its status:  Do you know where your voter registration is?

It's not a question to be waved away.  It does not matter if you have voted in every election since you turned of age.  It does not matter where you live, the color of your skin, who your state is run by - the march is on throughout this nation to disenfranchise voters, wholesale wipe out millions from existing voter rolls, and do it all under cover of darkness so it is too late when you post up to vote and are found to be missing from the registered voter lists.

Just yesterday it was announced that Texas has purged ONE MILLION people from the rolls.  Now, purging is not unusual and does have its place.  My father, father-in-law, and mother-in-law?  Dead, and obviously should not be listed as eligible.  But purging also sweeps away actual voters who may not have participated in an election in a couple of cycles.  Very much alive, very much citizens, but suddenly wiped out.

And time is of the essence.  In Texas, you only have until October 7 to register to vote in this election.  

In March Indiana passed a law that targets naturalized citizens. The law requires election officials to use DMV records to identify non-citizens – and has no safeguards to protect against removal of people who have since become naturalized citizens.  Texas pulled this shit in 2019 and tens of thousands of naturalized citizens were thrown on the rolls.

In North Carolina, state legislators passed S.B. 747 in 2023, another bill targeting non-citizen voting. Using lists of people excused from jury service because of self-identification as a non-citizen, the new North Carolina law triggers a removal process that lacks adequate matching criteria to ensure the correct person is being removed.

Another important one from the Voting Rights Lab: A 2021 Georgia law opened the door to frivolous mass challenges to voter registrations. Unfounded challenges inundated understaffed election offices in 2022. Out of nearly 100,000 challenges, 89% were submitted by just six individuals. This November will be the first test of this new policy in a presidential election year, where the number of voters – and potential challenges – will be much greater. Given how close voting margins in Georgia tend to be, wrongful removals or inactivations of voter status could have outcome-altering effects. In the 2022 midterms, 1.4% of active voter registrations were challenged – and the last presidential election was determined by a margin of just 0.26%. As of publication, a bill clarifying the scope of this law, but doing nothing to mitigate its impact is currently sitting on the governor’s desk.

Republicans efforts to purge and disenfranchise voters is rampant across the country.  So what happens if you walk in to vote and suddenly you are persona non grata?  First, hope you live in one of the 28 states that allow for same day registration.  Does your state?  Check Here.

If you are registered, do you know for sure all is well?  Daily, people are sharing their stories of checking their registrations only to find out they are inactive or cannot be found.  I am new to Florida and registered when I got my driver license.  I am literally checking every. single. day.

Encouraging you to do the same is not being hyperbolic.  It's being smart.  In every election we hear about swing states over and over.  How Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, and North Carolina will decide it all.  And yes, from an electoral college standpoint they are the pivotal pieces of the puzzle.  But that does not mean your vote is not important.  We must turn out in such large numbers, in a wave of blue so irrefutable, that none of the certification subterfuge can get a foothold.  There are positive indicators out there...

The Harris Effect - in the 13 states that have updated voter files since July 21st, we are seeing incredible surges in voter registration relative to the same time period in 2024, driven by women, voters of color, and young voters. pic.twitter.com/x6AGViJdjm

— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) August 27, 2024

But that subterfuge is out there as well. 

I know all our lives are busy and it is easy to confine ourselves and our information gathering to places we consider safe.  I see it daily in the various Facebook groups that sprang up overnight when Kamala got the nod to lead the ticket.  And safe spaces are great for camaraderie, especially when you live somewhere deep red and isolating.  But I also see that not enough people are staying abreast of news outside their groups.  And that's where bad games of telephone spring up, and there's often as much misinformation and fear being fomented in those groups as in comment boards on Red State.

I would encourage people to add some sources to their daily walk through the internet.  A big one would be Democracy Docket.

Marc Elias, one of this country's top election lawyers, and his team are daily fighting back in court against right wing efforts to subvert this election through voter suppression tactics.  And they are winning.  In fact, it does a body good to keep abreast and see their results playing out each week.  Marc has also been brought on as legal counsel by the Harris-Walz team for the expected fight after the ballot boxes. 

Again, why your vote needs safeguarded and counted.  We simply cannot afford Trump any "Find me 11,780 votes" wiggle room.  

Getting out and learning more can happen even in what feels like a heinous space, namely Twitter (again, fuck Musk and calling it X).  Yes, I am one who set up a place on Threads when it came to be, but I also stayed on Twitter because so many important voices are still fighting the good fight there.  It is possible to curate your list of "following" there and keep up to date with everything from court cases to the latest bullshit conspiracy theories, misinformation and flat out lies you should know about so you can counter them when you encounter them, to independent sources providing facts (add Meidas Touch to your Youtube channels) as opposed to legacy media that has been largely bought out by GOP billionaires.

I think it is great seeing how many people are turning out to volunteer; how many are placing signs in their yards, painting flamingos and fingernails blue, etc; how many young people are burning up Tik Tok virtually stomping for Harris and Walz.  We need all of that.  And the polls coming out look better each day, hell, Florida is coming into the margin of error.  But it is worth remembering how confident we all were about Hillary and her numbers back in 2016.  

And how gutted we were that night when the votes started coming in.

That simply cannot be repeated.  Even if you sit in a demographic where Project 2025 won't rock your boat, you know someone who will be tossed overboard and drowned.  Everything from reproductive rights to bodily autonomy to my son's right to simply exist as a trans person; from gutting Medicare and Social Security and raising taxes; from tracking a miscarriage and denying parents the right to assist their children on their LGBTQIA journeys; from baby formula never being held to standards again and the Department of Education being eradicated; from books being banned and burned and ONE religion being shoved into every classroom. 

It's all there waiting on the other side of voter apathy.  On the other side of protest voting.  On the other side of not being registered to vote.  On the other side of thinking it won't be that bad.

It will.  The biggest mistake they made was showing their asses and Project 2025 coming to light in time for us to read it, vomit, and begin spreading the word.  Trumpism and the MAGA cult must be yanked out by the roots, and the ground salted so it may never take hold again.

So I will again harken back to the 60s when that question began being asked each night and paraphrase it for our times today and the darkness we must vanquish.  

It's 70 days.  Do you know where your voter registration is?