Hey There,
Remember a couple weeks ago when I wrote a whole thing about getting out the vote? Well I'd like to take full credit for the largest voter turnout in history. I think my compelling argument tipped the scales for sure. Here's the thing though, we're not done yet.
Let's assume, given that there is literally no actual evidence of election fraud of any kind, that Joe Biden will take office in January. There is still no guarantee that he will be able to accomplish much of anything if the Senate maintains a Republican majority. Even the people who populate a President's cabinet--his closest advisors and the heads of their respective departments--are Senate confirmable. This means that if Mitch McConnell remains majority leader, he could strategically or spitefully (or likely both) hold up any and all confirmations he likes. Along with any legislation that President-Elect Biden hopes to move forward.
Not only will this be perfect fodder for the following presidential election ("President Biden has achieved NOTHING in four years!") but it is also incredibly dangerous. Even just holding up the transition, as they are right now, is a threat to national security. Many believe the delayed transition into the George W. Bush presidency created the opening for the 9/11 attacks.
But all is not lost. As anyone who has been watching/reading/listening to the news in the last few days knows, there are TWO runoffs in Georgia in January. It's unusual enough to have a runoff determining the Senate majority. It's even crazier to have two in the same state (the election cycles for the Senate are actually designed to avoid this - only because of an off-cycle retirement are we even in this situation). Anyway, here we are and we have WORK TO DO.
If anyone is scratching their heads wondering why, when they can taste freedom, all the establishment Republicans are still supporting all the baseless election fraud claims and the "right" of the current office-holder to spew them, it is almost certainly to do with the Georgia Runoff. They need to win the runoff and in their minds the only way to do that is to keep the pot stirred among his most fervent followers. It is hard enough to get people to go vote in a Presidential election year under normal circumstances. It is much harder to get people to vote off-cycle and even harder when they're exhausted from the election that just happened. Better to keep them angry than risk apathy.
Personally, I wonder whether this will work. If you tell people elections are rigged, will they believe in voting again? Apparently the Republicans believe they will. I do hope that the results in Georgia in the Presidential election show Democratic voters just how valuable their vote is and encourages them to get back out there one more time. But we can't take that for granted. We need to once again help get out the vote.
Just because Georgia went for Biden does not by any means give either Jon Ossoff or Rev. Warnock a clear path to victory. There is a lot of work to do. And even if you do not live in Georgia, you can help.
A huge reason why Georgia swung for Biden is because of the Herculean efforts by organizations like Fair Fight (Stacey Abrams's org) to register an unprecedented number of people in the state and to assist them in making voting plans for successfully casting their ballots. This two-pronged approach is exactly what needs to be continued in order to have any hope of winning even one of these races. There also will need to be a bit of voter education, given that these candidates are going to be lesser known than those at the top of the ticket.
First off, here are some important dates:
December 7th - Voter Registration Deadline
December 14th - Early Voting Begins
January 5th - Election day
People have created super helpful resource documents with tons of information and links. You can also donate directly to the campaigns (Ossoff & Warnock). There are a lot of other great organizations worth considering for donations (along with Fair Fight linked above) including New Georgia Project, Pro Georgia, and Georgia Stand-Up. If you'd prefer to volunteer then, among other opportunities, the Ossoff and Warnock campaigns each have phone banks. If texting is more your speed, Fair Fight has text banking. You can even write postcards instead!
Please consider donating some money or time (whatever you have) to this cause. This could mean the difference on so many issues it's too daunting to try to list them here. Just know this is far from over and even if you aren't a Georgia resident, you can still have your say in the matter.
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