In keeping with our intention to post two weeks (or so) of early and absentee voting information as an Art for Art’s Sake Press public service announcement, here are your options if you live in Maine, California, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, Indiana, Ohio and Georgia.
| Oct. 4 | Maine |
| Oct. 5 | California, Iowa, Montana and Nebraska |
| Oct. 6 | Indiana and Ohio |
| Oct. 12 | Georgia |
| Oct. 13 | Kentucky and Texas |
Sneak previews for Kentucky and Texas
Two states — Kentucky and Texas — get an extra preview, a week ahead of the week they should appear in these little PSAs.
Kentucky, your senior Senator is a blot on the honor and dignity of that chamber. I have already railed against Mr McConnell’s breathtaking hypocrisy. If you, too, think his actions are dishonest (to say the least), vote him out and vote in Amy McGrath. Do not miss a shot at getting your hands on whatever safe, alternative, early voting apparatus your state offers. (The alternative is to think Mitch is doing a swell job — which you might believe because you are less concerned with fairness or honoring one’s own word and more interested in packing the courts with conservative justices.)
And Texas gets an extra preview because, according to The Guardian news analysis, it is one of the hardest states to vote in: early, mail-in, in-person. Texans — whatever their political party or location — have to work harder than most of us to vote. Why is that?
Oh! Maybe because the people who tend to live in places where it’s easier to reach a polling place, or are more likely to have legislatively approved voter ID, tend to vote Republican.
Now that’s a very nasty thing to say. (For that, I could qualify for the president’s favorite epithet, “Nasty woman!”) But really, is there any other way of understanding this?
Why would you make it harder to vote for Democratic-leaning voters if you didn’t believe your policies and positions were so unappealing they’d never consider voting for you?
The end of last week’s news-cycle revolved around the presidential prevarication about “tossing out ballots” to ensure he would win, and whether he would actually leave office if he lost. This is bad enough. But the deafening silence of Republicans — including the Secretaries of State responsible for reassuring the voters in their states that all is indeed well with their voting procedures — bothers me even more.
Every vote counts. Count every vote.
What else can I do besides vote?
Read the fine print at the links for your state. Watch out for tricks and stumbling blocks in the process. Your state may require you to apply for early voting privileges. Then, it may give you a very short window before that early voting day. Similarly, if you request an absentee ballot, you may have to also return it in a very short window of time. Decide not to vote early or absentee after requesting permission to do so, and you could face hassles at your polling station on actual Election Day.
What else can you do? In addition to voting yourself, see if you can help someone else vote — maybe by driving them to the polling station (wear your masks!). Offer to help register under-represented citizens. Volunteer to be a poll worker if you’re young and healthy enough to do so. Work with those working to eliminate gerrymandering. Join a campaign in your state for permanent mail-ballot voting, as we do here in Washington, or perhaps making Election Day a national holiday.
These links come from a calendar of early voting access, state by state, published by The New York Times. For which a huge thank you! There’s also information about mail-ballots in NPR’s article Mail-in Voting Rules by State.
This week’s Vote Now photographs…
Top: Seed Savers Exchange, near Decorah, Iowa
Bottom: Corsicana, Texas
Both: L. J. Cameron
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