02/06/2019
Today's topic so far is: "getting big money out of politics and restoring democracy.” I also asked group members to share any experiences they might have had with people discouraged to vote because they feel the system is rigged or nobody would count their vote anyway. Here are some of the (unedited) responses so far:
1) I once volunteered as a poll watcher in Chicago. A young black woman had been standing in line for hours was about to give up and leave. I told her that there were a lot of people who would be happy to see her leave, because they didn't want her to vote. "Why don't they want me to vote?!" "Because you're black. And because you're a woman." She stayed in line.
2) I’ve spent the past two years talking to POC non voters and exploring their reasoning. For some of them, the gaslighting, the untruths, the Dem Party infighting has them so confused, they just don’t know who to trust. Others feel that, no matter who they vote for, Big Money in politics always wins in the end. For example, Cory Booker’s vote in favor of Big Pharma in 2017. Only when The Resistance revealed the $300,000 he’d taken from them did he try to backtrack. So my argument to them was that #1, you need to vote and #2, you MUST stay involved and hold the people you voted for accountable. But then 2018 happened: The gerrymandering, the obvious chicanery in Georgia... what could I say? If the Democrats don’t take a HUGE stand against voter suppression, why would any POC bother to vote??
3) For years I was a voter official. One year there was a hurricane they hit during the election and caused many people not being able to come in cast their vote due to damage to the roads homes and even the polling place. The chief of voting officer for the state. Inform the public that we would send out paper ballots to the mail. That they could fill and return. It was only two precincts that shut down during the hurricane. That evening after the announcement. I received a call telling me that I needed to report to a high school and set up a polling place to be run the very next morning. Appeared that the results for the senator were just 5000 votes short. So the powers that be wanted a result now. When I arrived all I saw they only sent these evote machines that where slow and known to crash. I was alarmed because we had eight to service possible 10,000 for 8 hours. Well let’s just say it was a fu***ng nightmare.
Oh I called the governors office and told them to either bring me more machines or I would leave. I was one of two officials working. They said they would. They showed up half way through the day with eight more. But mind you this was after a two hour shutdown. GAWD I hated that day.
