Get-out-the-vote letter writer Nancy Gehman poses for a photo at her home on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2020, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Sometimes her hand hurt, but Nancy Gehman kept writing. Every evening from July until mid-October, the 85-year-old retiree sat with a gel pen, writing notes imploring fellow Americans to find a way to vote."It was comforting to know that I was doing something productive," she says.
As early voting has surged dramatically, with more than 73 million people estimated to have cast ballots, advocates have been mobilizing in myriad ways, from neighbourhood groups to national movements, from block associations to college marching bands to lone violinists. Voters have been ushered to the polls by fleets of minivans, with bicycle parades and on horseback in Indian Country. When they get there, they're sometimes welcomed by a cello performance or a dance party.
"As much as we know voting is important and necessary ... people are struggling," says advocate Ahtza Dawn Chavez. "In some ways, a lot of it can come off as just being insensitive." "Don't let anybody suppress, stop, stymie, deter, detract your right to vote," Barber recently told attendees of a get-out-the-vote event.
The community justice organization hopes it sends a message: Voter suppression efforts in minority communities will backfire. The 15-passenger vans, which accommodate six people with social distancing, get going as the sun comes up and drive all day, and are sanitized between each trip. Also on the musical front, "Joy to the Polls" seeks to make a memorable experience of waiting in line to vote. A recent video on social media showed voters in Philadelphia dancing joyfully as they waited, alongside members of the Resistance Revival Chorus.
So she called Katie Beaumont, who directs a program, At Home on High, that helps older adults like Tonkins stay home by providing transportation, yardwork, shopping and other services. Beaumont dropped Tonkins' ballot off last Wednesday. "We don't care the way you vote. We just want you to vote," Beaumont said.
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