Subject: Important Activist Actions Week of June 15
Leelanau Indivisibles! It is
143 Days to the General Election!Here are some activities and actions for your participation this week:
- Sign Up: Today, Monday, June 15, at 5:30 p.m. there is a Michigan Women for Biden launch call. If you are interested in participating, here is the link for sign up:
I’ve signed up to attend a community meeting with Joe Biden for President on Monday, Jun 15, 2020. Are you free to join me? Use this link to sign up: https://www.mobilize.us/joebiden/event/279537/?referring_vol=1118125&rname=Victoria×lot=1571805&share_medium=email_link&share_context=email_3 |
- Stay tuned for a possible Black Lives Matter Rally, Traverse City Open Space on Juneteenth (June 19th)
The local members of our black community who led the June 6 rally and are part of a new anti racism task force are planning a Juneteenth celebration June 19, tentatively at the Open Space. We are still waiting on permits so will announce the final location hopefully tomorrow. It will be music, a lecture on Juneteenth history, and other activities. It’s 4-7 p.m.
The event is on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/events/s/celebrate-juneteenth-physicall/2733841450172930/
If you aren’t on Facebook, check with a friend who is for further details.
Here is the link to a good article: 75 Things White People Can Do For Racial Justice: https://medium.com/equality-includes-you/what-white-people-can-do-for-racial-justice-f2d18b0e0234
- Correction to Billboard link: There was a mistype in Sunday’s e-mail for the donation link to help us sponsor billboards across our area. Here is the correct link: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/vote-blue-michigan-1
- Sign Up For WAVE
I hope you enjoyed Saturday’s presentation on WAVE. For those of you who didn’t attend Saturday’s meeting, Jill sent out the recording of the meeting yesterday and also the notes on how to sign up and get started using the tool.
Years back, when I was still working, I talked to my CIO about a big idea I had to change the way our company handled expense reporting that would fundamentally change the way we did all accounts payable and receivable handling. It was bigger than anything that had ever been done by our company. At the end of my pitch, I must have looked discouraged and overwhelmed at the enormity of it all. She kindly asked me, “How do you eat an elephant?” and when I didn’t respond, she said, “One bite at a time.”
Getting Trump out of the White House and getting our democracy working again seems like eating that elephant. So how do we tackle it? One bite at a time.
Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes. That is 2 votes per precinct. That is the bite each one of us can take on to win.
For the last three years, we’ve been using grass roots tools: knocking doors, phone banking, and postcard writing. It worked. In 2018, we flipped the U.S. House and elected all female executive branch here in Michigan. We have been a formidable wave.
Now we have a new tool, WAVE, that will help us reach out to our neighbors, friends, and family members who are registered Michigan voters who may also be infrequent voters. We can strategically target them and have the easy conversation because we can use the tool to 1.) see if they “lean” blue and 2.) if they are an infrequent voter. Using the WAVE tool, you can print a cover letter, an absentee ballot application prefilled with their name and address, requiring only their signature and return to their clerk. If you want, you can even provide them a stamped envelope pre-addressed with their township clerk’s address.
Once they sign and return their absentee ballot application, they will be on the permanent absentee voter list. The WAVE system even provides for absentee ballot tracking. Did your return application get processed by the clerk? Was you ballot received by the clerk? Did your vote get counted?
If you cannot find the instructions about WAVE but are interested, or if you need help, please contact me and I will do my best to help you out.
- Remember: The Pandemic is not over so stay safe.