Hello, friends! I know we’ve all been driving ourselves bonkers getting out the vote through phone-banking, text-banking, door-knocking, nail-biting, stress-eating… you name it! (P.S. Reese’s Peanut Butter cups are my pre-election fuel of choice.)
Although I do sugar-coat my diet these days, I’m not going to sugar-coat this news for you: Ballot curing can decide this election.
What’s ballot curing? It’s getting a chance to correct mail-in/absentee ballots that have already been sent in, but with errors on them. (I talked about this with Lifehacker this week if you want a fuller explanation.)
How can ballot curing be the deciding factor in 2020? Well, back on October 19, North Carolina’s State Board of Elections said about 10,000 ballots already sent in from residents of that swing state were in need of curing, while NPR likewise said a week-ish ago that Florida was at 11,500-plus ballots in need of curing.
Most importantly, how can you help those whose ballots need curing? Glad you asked! You can volunteer to call voters whose ballots need curing just like you’d volunteer to phone-bank. A brief training period (usually at the start of your shift) is likely required. I’ve rounded up lots of info on ballot-curing volunteer opportunities at https://www.friendsvotetogether.org/protect. There’s also lots of Ballot Curing info on our Instagram @friendsvotetogether, and check out the comments below for links to other curing opportunities kindly provided by other DailyKos friends!)
Bonus! You know how phone-banking can be nerve-wracking because you don’t know if the person on the other end is going to be happy to hear from you? I promise you the people you contact about ballot curing will be thrilled to hear from you. You’re not nagging them to do something they’ve been meaning to do (or maybe don’t want to do at all). Instead, you’re helping make sure that the time and effort they already spent voting doesn’t go to waste. You are helping ensure their vote gets counted. So don’t just sign up for curing volunteering yourself; get that phone-shy friend of yours to do it with you. Because when friends cure ballots together, we win.
Home stretch, friends! Let’s go!