election checklist, week twelve.

October 12, 2020

see something say something | voter intimidation reporting project | reading my tea leaves

We have 22 days until the 2020 election in the US. That’s 3 weeks during which I’ll be trying my damnedest to get leaders elected who will move the dial toward equity, inclusion, and progressive policies that will do the least harm and the greatest good.

I love lists. I love checking things off of lists. I’d hazard the guess that lots of folks reading this do, too. So, every Monday until November, I’ll be listing one specific action to take in preparation of the election. Electoral politics won’t solve everything, but voting is a tool in the box and it needs to be sharpened, oiled, and ready for action.

Week Twelve: Say something.

For democracies to function, voters need safe access to polls free from intimidation. The US general election is just 22 days away, and in some states early voting is already underway. As voters in the US begin to head to the polls, the folks at Dem Labs and See Say 2020 have revamped a citizen reporting project developed in 2018 that helps folks report incidents of voter intimidation and access those reports in real time on the See Say Map.

Where do we come in? Citizen reporting!

Voter intimidation is prohibited by Federal law and is loosely defined as conduct intended to coerce people to vote against their preferences, or not at all, by instilling fear. This can include things like following voters to and from polling places, spreading false information about voter requirements, confronting voters in military-style clothing, brandishing firearms, disrupting voting lines or blocking entrances. The list goes on, so if we see something questionable happening at a polling place, we should err on the side of caution and report the incident to See Say 2020 so that incidents can be tracked, reported on, and hopefully put to an end.

Here’s how See Say 2020 works:

REPORT: Voters (you! me!) report incidents of voter intimidation at seesay2020.com. This information includes details like location, time, and the nature of the incident.

VALIDATE: Submitted reports are screened, validated, and prioritized by a team of trained volunteers.

MAP: Validated results are presented on the SeeSay 2020 Map, giving the public, members of the press, and groups working to protect voting rights fast access to a people-owned database of incidents of voter suppression.

You can learn lots more about the project at DemLabs See Something Say Something 2020.