This weekend, Hope Springs from Field PAC organized Voter Suppression mitigation canvasses in Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It was the first weekend that we had all the states we are involved with in the field at the same time.
In Florida, we concentrated on Osceola (and a wee part of Polk) county. We have been canvassing in Florida for more than a month, but our earlier focus had been on reports of voter harassment and intimidation. On Saturday, we focused on the Disney-related communities, as Walt Disney World has staffed up again, inviting back employees it had let go during the pandemic.
Many of the Disney staff stay at Disney villages such as Little Lake Bryan, Vista Lake, Chatham Square, Lake Forest, Vista Way, Patterson Court, The Commons, Flamenco Crossings or the Poinciana subdivision. Even if people returned to the same community, they were frequently assigned different places to live, and hence needed to update their voter registration with their current address. Many changes have occurred since, when Florida enacted a confusing and frustrating Election law that is particularly onerous for people who change residences more frequently than normal. Like Disney employees.
The new law requires voters to provide, in addition to their date of birth, the last four digits of their Social Security number OR their driver license OR state ID card number to make an address change. Which is par for the course this year, but here’s the part that is likely to stump people who move around (like Disney employees who don’t own their own home, especially on Disney property). You have to remember which one you provided, because you have to provide the same one every single time you interact with your local Supervisor of Elections, or your request won’t be granted. SoE’s won’t have access to other databases, so they can only "verify” a request by the information the voter has provided.
Of course, people who remain at their address will also be impacted by this change. People who request a mail ballot in person, by phone or in writing will as well. You have to provide the specific number you gave to the SoE’s office at the time of registration. Otherwise, your request is supposed to be rejected.
If you have concluded that Republicans want to force voters to go to the polls on election day and minimize Early Voting, you have caught on to their sinister plot! At the same time Republicans were trying to make it harder for people to change their addresses and request a mail ballot, they were liberalizing the rules for poll watchers, giving them (poll watchers) greater opportunities to force our voters to cast provisional ballots. Provisional ballots mean that voters have to return to the SoE’s offices to verify who they are — you got it! — using the same number they provided when they first registered.
The fact that poll watchers with this intention won’t be present at Republican precincts or likely to challenge Republican voters (voters register by party in Florida) is a mere coincidence.</sarcasm>
This was the reason we were out on Saturday, registering and making an attempt at re-registering these younger, mostly college-educated people living mostly on Disney properties. We recognize that some, maybe many, will have to re-register more than once since they may not remember which form of identification they used when they first registered. Confusion reigns supreme in Florida!
Hope Springs from Field PAC is knocking on doors in a grassroots-led effort to increase awareness of the fact that Democrats care about our voters and are working to protect their rights. We are thinking about how to mitigate Voter Suppression efforts, get around them and make sure we have "super compliance," both informing and helping our voters meet the requirements and get out and vote. We are taking those efforts to the doors of the communities most effected (the intended targets or victims) of these new voter suppression laws.
Obviously, we rely on grassroots support, so if you support field/grassroots organizing and our efforts to protect our voters, we would certainly appreciate your support:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/voterprotection
Hope Springs from Field PAC was started by former Obama Field Organizers because field was the cornerstone of our success. The approach we adopted was focused on listening, on connecting voters and their story to the candidate and our cause. Repeated face to face interactions are critical. And we are among those who believe that Democrats didn’t do as well in the 2020 Congressional races as expected because we didn’t knock on doors. We are returning to the old school basics: repeated contacts, repeated efforts to remind them of protocols, meeting them were they are. Mentoring those who need it (like first time and newly registered voters). Reminding, reminding, reminding, and then chasing down those voters whose ballots need to be cured.
Republicans have a strategy, a Trumpian strategy at that, to reduce early voting and to funnel Democratic voters to vote at the polls where they have to pass by the paranoia of GOP poll watchers, and force those they find questionable to cast provisional ballots. Changing the laws would be great, winning the court challenges would be even better, but we can not count on that. It’s difficult to believe that Republican members of Congress will undermine the very strategy they are working towards.
By starting early, and aiming towards super-compliance with these really, really onerous provisions, Hope Springs from Field PAC seeks to undermine that strategy, while informing voters about the new laws and regulations aimed at them. That includes making sure that out-of-state workers at Disney know to, and how to, obtain a State ID card if they don’t want to give up their out-of-state DL but still want to vote in Florida. There’s a lot of work to be done, but fortunately, the three states that are making it most difficult are also states in which you can knock on doors at least 10 months out of the year. And, with your help, we will be there, getting our people to super-comply with these restrictive provisions.
If you are able to support our efforts to protect Democratic voters, in minority as well as more transient communities, working to expand the electorate and get people to the polls while safe-guarding our Constitutional right to vote, and believe in grassroots efforts to increase voter participation, please do. Contributions go towards purchase of Mobile Printers, canvassing supplies (water, snacks, cooling towels), paper, literature and use of VAN:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/voterprotection
Thank you for your support.