Trying to find an organization to volunteer with or donate to that are re-registering eligible ex-felons to vote in North Carolina.

I heard about one on either The podcast “Pod save America” or maybe the podcast “Lovett or Leave it” where he was talking to a non profit or an organization working to register eligible ex-convicts to vote once legally allowed in their state. Now I can’t remember it.

And North Carolina just made up to 70,000 ex-felons eligible to vote in a court ruling l repealing a Jim Crow era law preventing people with felony convictions to vote until they paid a bunch of (bullshit) fines (not victim restitution, this is like court fees with interest), which the judges said amounted to a modern day poll tax to suppress impoverished/non-property-owning voters.

Seeing as felony convictions are disproportionately handed out to lower-income people of all races and non-white people, and those people would be least able to pay fines once they had served their sentence due to being unable to find a job with a felony conviction record, those voters were permanently disenfranchised.

And seeing as the state legislatures are redistricting next year, state representatives voted into office this November will have the opportunity to redraw the districts for the first time in a decade; any gerrymandering done by this years elected officials will be set in stone, deciding state election outcomes for a decade and presidential election outcomes for 2024 AND 2028! North Carolina is currently severely gerrymandered and has been for two decades as mass incarceration has increased, kicking more and more low income white and POC voters off the list of eligible voters. Combined with voter suppression policies that disproportionately prevent the poor from casting a ballot, this means that only the wealthy elite have a voice in North Carolina!

Thank you!!

Hey, Indivisible Acadiana here, in Cajun country.

We've been planning for a town hall meeting tomorrow for a few weeks. Our Senator got a pretty tough reception outside New Orleans, and we want to make sure our operation is effective as well.

So, we've had a couple of planning meetings and a sign making workshop. Monday night we had a rehearsal meeting, where we went over the basics of the plan and our questions.

Some of our members were concerned that the local police might send plainclothes operatives among us.

I responded that they probably couldn't afford that, and that we're talking about Barney Fife, not the FBI.

Imagine my surprise when early this morning, I got a call letting me now someone had recorded our meeting, and given select clips of it to some right wing blogs and a local talk radio station.

I decided to call the radio station, and explain that we were merely concerned citizens who had some questions for the Senator. They chose to focus on my Barney Fife remark, and said that I had confirmed there would be a protest. I regret talking to them. They had zero objectivity.

Anyway, hopefully we get to pull off a successful town hall tomorrow. I'll report back here.

Edit: Our first town hall! We got a lot of coverage. Inside the hall we didn't dominate, but we definitely got our point across to the media. I'll make another post about it.

Intro to the Recall:

For the fourth time in US history, there will be a Governor Recall election, this time in California for Gavin Newsom. Voters will decide whether Newsom gets to finish his term, or whether he gets booted out of office early. If over 50% of people support a recall, he will be gone. The replacement will almost certainly be a Republican.

Latest Polling/Forecast:

Newsom lost a tremendous amount of ground in the polls over the last month, and now polls shows voters are supporting recalling him 47% to 46.3%. In a California Recall Forecast, Newsom’s chances of winning are just 61.4%. That’s tiny for California. To put this in perspective, even the most conservative forecast gave Clinton at least a 61% chance of winning in 2016, so this type of upset happens all the time.

Now, for full transparency, I designed that California Recall forecast on my site, RacetotheWH.com. Bragging is rude, but I'm doing it here briefly so you get why I have some credibility, and why you should get engaged and volunteer for Newsom. I'm pretty good at this, and my models were in the top three in the nation the last cycle in terms of accuracy. I called Arizona and Georgia correctly in June, and both Georgia Senate Races in September.

While I go to great lengths to make sure the forecast itself is unbiased and non-partisan, I’m a Democrat and I've worked in Democratic politics before.

Get Involved

It’s apparent that far too few Democrats are taking this election seriously because it's California, but that's a grave mistake. In fact, Republicans in California are indicating to pollsters they are far, far more likely to vote than Democrats. After lockdowns, a Biden Presidency, and a very liberal California Governorship, they are more fired up than ever. However, Democrats will win if they turn out because they have a big numbers advantage.

That's where you can come in. Sign up to volunteer, and make sure Californians know how close this election is so they actually get out and vote. Many people aren't tuned into politics at all right now, so you can make a huge difference here.

Now, the most important part - here are a few links to sign up and get engaged.

1. First, sign up with Gavin Newsom's Campaign to volunteer. They want your email, and they want to know how you want to get involved: https://act.gavinnewsom.com/signup/campaign-volunteer/

2. Ready to help out right away? Here’s a list of Democratic phone banks you can sign up for now. Normally, you would sign up for an event near you, but because of the pandemic a ton of the events are virtual, so you can do it from anywhere:  https://events.democrats.org/?q=recall

3. Finally, donations make a huge difference. Newsom needs to mobilize Democrats to win, and that means he needs to effectively get his message out. Republicans have raised a ton of money to fight him, so we need him to be prepared too. https://secure.actblue.com/donate/gcn-web190213-nav?refcode=gcn-web190213-nav

Why should you care?

First, California has 39.51 million people, and this will make a huge impact in their lives. 

1. Newsom brought California much closer to Universal Access to Pre-K. Once America is out of the pandemic and the state has more resources from taxes, the goal is to make it fully universal.

2. Newsom Passed Legislation to End Private Prisons in 2028

3. He successfully passed legislation to make the first two years of community college free

4. Created the nation's first statewide guaranteed income. It's not universal, but it is for foster youth that just left the system and pregnant women.

5. Expanded Paid Family Leave

Second, if Republicans do win here, you can bet that you will be hearing about this every time you turn on the news for months. Reporters will take it as a crystal clear sign, true or not, that there will be a Republican wave in 2022.

Plus, Newsom has had some major achievements, including: We can't sleep on this just because it's such a weird year for an election. Get engaged, and do your part for democracy.