Daily Donations: 6/9/2020 — (Fair Fight, Let America Vote, Common Cause)

Every day in June I’ll be making 3 donations — one to a cause in the immediate term, one to a cause in the medium term, and one to a longer term cause. If you’d like to get involved, let me know! I’d be more than happy to share ideas and take suggestions. You can find all of the causes I’ve donated to so far, HERE.

I’m hoping to be able to make a post on Medium every day that explains why I’ve chosen each of my causes, with a little bit of my research linked. Here are my causes today:

In light of what is happening in Georgia today — a concerted effort by the Republican Party and improperly elected “Governor”, Brian Kemp, to prevent Georgians from voting — I’ve decided to make all three of today’s donations to voting rights organizations.

First: Fair Fight

With today’s events in Georgia, it is only right that my first contribution is to Fair Fight Action, a voting rights PAC founded by Stacey Abrams in 2018 in response to the last election that Brian Kemp rigged.

During the 2018 election cycle, Georgia’s gubernatorial race was one of the most covered races in the country. Stacey Abrams (D) was challenging Brian Kemp (R) in a toss-up. However, at the time of the election, Kemp was serving as Georgia’s Secretary of State, meaning that he was the chief official in charge of the election process. Rather than step back from his position, Kemp proceeded to purge tens of thousands of voters from Georgia’s voter rolls, close polling stations, improperly declare thousands of voters ineligible to register, and deploy faulty voting booths en route to winning the election by just 55,000 votes.

Sadly, and predictably, Kemp is at it again with widespread complaints during Georgia’s primary elections of obscenely long lines and faulty voting machines:

Fair Fight have been attempting to take Kemp to court for his crimes and also promote voter registration and fair voting practices in Georgia and beyond.

You can donate to Fair Fight here.

Second: Let America Vote

In yesterday’s daily donation post I mentioned Jason Kander as being a part of the Collective PAC’s initiative to increase black and brown representation in elected positions.

Today, I’ll be donating to the organization Kander himself founded in 2017 — Let America Vote. Since then, LAV has become one of the organizations at the forefront of the voting rights fight in America. Their site says it best:

Extreme voter suppression laws that disproportionately impact people based on their race or ethnicity, gender, age, or income are popping up all over the country at an alarming pace. If we don’t fight back, more and more Americans will become disenfranchised and lose their voice in our democracy.

Over the past decade, momentum on voting rights has gone dangerously in the wrong direction. We started Let America Vote to fight back against proposals across the country that make it harder for eligible voters to exercise their constitutional right to cast a ballot. Whether it’s extreme identification requirements, questionable purges of voters from the rolls, voter intimidation, new and extreme voter registration processes, or anything that makes voting harder, Let America Vote is there to lead the fight against it. We advocate for pro-voter policies that make the process more reasonable. Through online and grassroots organizing, an aggressive earned media strategy, and advertising campaigns, Let America Vote plays a crucial role among the existing network of organizations fighting for voting rights.

Since we launched in February 2017, we have contacted over 1 million voters and more 700,000 people have signed up to join our cause. We’ve helped 110 voting rights champions win elections — from state legislators to statewide elected officials — beating anti-voter politicians across the country.

Those of us that believe in preserving the right to vote must start winning the political argument. When politicians make it hard to vote, we make it hard for them to get re-elected. That is the mission of Let America Vote.

You can donate to Let America Vote here.

Third: Common Cause

Common Cause is one of the oldest voting rights advocacy groups in America. Founded in 1970, Common Cause is now in its 50th year of nonpartisan voting rights advocacy.

Their key areas of focus are:

• Ethics and Accountability
• Money and Influence
• Gerrymandering and Representation
• Voting and Elections
• Media and Democracy
• Constitution, Courts, and Other Democracy Issues

They serve these areas of focus at the state and local level through a combination of grassroots organizing, coalition building, research, policy development, public education, lobbying and litigation, with the hopes of achieving voting reform at all levels of government.

You can donate to Common Cause here.