This Week in the Fight to Vote — Sept. 21 – 27

By Chris deLaubenfels, Director of Policy and Communications, Let America Vote

Happy National Voter Registration Day

Although it got overshadowed by a little story out of D.C., Tuesday was National Voter Registration Day! Celebrities from Tom Hanks and Michelle Obama to Meek Mill and Taylor Swift urged their fans to register to vote. If you missed the holiday, you can still check your voter registration status or register to vote. You can also celebrate National Voter Registration Day year round by making sure your family, friends, and neighbors are registered before the elections in 2019 and 2020! 

Georgia voters purged for seeking mental health services

In recent years, Georgians have been some of the biggest victims of voter suppression across the country. Now, some Georgia voters have been purged from voting rolls for seeking mental health services. This is unabashed voter suppression. Fortunately, the ACLU of Georgia and the Lawyers’ Committee for Rights Under Law are fighting back against the purges and wrote a letter to DeKalb County election officials pushing them to remedy the illegal purge. It is crucial to our democracy that voter suppression be challenged and defeated at the national, state, and local level.

This week’s must read

The Daily Kos published a sobering guide to which political party would be in charge of drawing maps if redistricting occured today. Even after the 2018 Blue Wave and successful ballot initiatives establishing independent redistricting commissions, if redistricting occurred right now, Republicans would have unfettered power to draw 40% of the congressional seats nationwide. Democrats would only have the power to draw 10% of all congressional seats. This report makes it clear that Democrats need to fight to win state legislative races in 2019 and 2020, and to fight for independent redistricting commissions in order to prevent Republicans from drawing extreme partisan gerrymanders in 2021.