In 2020, Ethical NYC joined the Center for Common Ground’s Reclaim Our Vote campaign, a non-partisan effort aimed at re-registering persons of color who have been removed from voter rolls in states with a history of voter suppression. Reclaim Our Vote also works to inform still-registered voters about new voting rules and restrictions that have been enacted, especially related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ethical NYC members prepared and distributed hundreds of supply packets volunteers used, from the safety of their homes, to mail thousands of postcards to our fellow citizens in threatened states, whose addresses were provided by the campaign’s partners at the NAACP. Packets consisted of specially created postcards, a short script to be handwritten, a list of addresses, stamps, and printed labels with county specific voter information that guide the recipient about how to check their status and to re-register.
We’re Back for 2022!
NYSEC’s Ethical Action Committee co-chair Janet Rose reports that as of January 24, she and husband Howard Rose had delivered almost 10,000 cards w/addresses, instructions, and labels in envelopes to volunteer writers in Manhattan packaged — all in less than 10 days, as the Reclaim Our Vote (ROV) campaign gets in gear to get out the vote in Texas for 2022. In that same period, here in Manhattan, there were a total of 17,600 packages assembled and distributed to volunteers (including those put together by Janet and Howard. According to Meika Mustrangi of the Center for Common Ground, “In just a couple of weeks volunteers across the country have requested 277,000 addresses in Texas!”
“So many volunteers are stepping up to help fight voter suppression. This is an even a bigger response than the 2020 general election when we packaged over 80,000 in six months,” says Janet.
To participate in the campaign, you can request a packet by using this online form.
About Reclaim Our Vote
Why do we need a RECLAIM OUR VOTE campaign?
Eligible voters of color are being purged from voter rolls at a much higher rate than white voters. People in minority communities were already struggling to reach the voting booth in voter-suppression states, due to the implementation of strict new voter ID laws, a reduction in polling places and/or early voting days, and many other tactics.
What is RECLAIM OUR VOTE?
The Reclaim Our Vote Campaign was officially launched in 2018 by the Center for Common Ground of Virginia, a 501(c)3 organization whose national partners include the NAACP, Black Voters Matter, Mi Familia Vota, VoteRiders and DemLabs.
History of the RECLAIM OUR VOTE campaign
Since late 2017, the nonpartisan Reclaim Our Vote campaign has reached out to nearly a million voters of color in states like Georgia, Alabama, Virginia, Texas and Mississippi—states with a long history of voter suppression. In December 2017, our phone bank calls helped increase turnout among rural voters of color by 35% in the Alabama special Senate election. In 2018, teaming up with Black Voters Matter, we made 185,000 calls to Georgia voters for the midterms; about 65% of those calls resulted in votes. In 2019, 20-25% of our postcards into nine counties in North Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District resulted in a voter registration.
What did RECLAIM OUR VOTE do in 2020?
In 2020, Reclaim Our Vote worked to expand its volunteer base and work towards a 20 percent increase in turnout among voters of color in at least four states, and a significant percentage increase in others. We started working towards this goal in 2019, in North Carolina and Virginia; in 2020 our target states were North Carolina, Texas, Arizona, Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia; our tools included postcards, phone banks, textbanks, geofencing, GOTV billboards in key areas, canvassing, rides to the polls and election monitoring.
