Put your support into action with a donation to Indivisible Northampton!
Every donation counts and no amount is too small. Help us continue to distribute thousands of postcards, make hundreds of calls, and educate hundreds of people about critical issues!
For the safety of our community, we are conducting our meetings online until conditions permit us to resume assembling in person.
Monday March 7th, 7-8pm
Common Cause Democracy Expert Stephen Spaulding Fighting for Democracy Right Here!
As we watch Ukrainians battle to protect their democracy, we see certain politicians here at home doing their best to undermine our own freedoms of speech and representation. With federal bills for voting rights off the table for now,
what’s the status of our own democracy
and how can we activists fight most effectively,
RIGHT NOW,
to protect and strengthen our rights to vote and have our votes counted here in the U.S.?
Ready to learn how we can all pitch in to save our democracy?
Then join Indivisible Northampton on
Monday, March 7th, 7 - 8pmEST
as we welcome
Steve Spaulding, Common Cause Senior Counsel on Public Policy and Government Affairs, and Sr. Advisor to CC’s President
There will be time for Q and A, so bring your questions!
Steve is an expert on Elections law, having served as Senior Advisor in the U.S. House to the Chair (Rep. Zoe Lofgren) of the committee overseeing federal elections. Steve was also Special Counsel to former FEC Chair and Commissioner Ann Ravel at the Federal Election Commission. Steve has played a key role in getting pro-democracy election reforms passed in the House, has testified in Congress, authored papers and appeared in various media to share his wisdom about democracy. You can hear him for yourself by joining us in zoom on Monday!
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
NEWS & EVENTS
Soundbites of Success Preaching LOUD and PROUD to our choir!
This graphic is a 'Soundbite of Success' - a reminder that even while many of our priorities are not yet realized, we need to celebrate what we have accomplished (think of what would be happening now if we activists had not come together to oust the former President, and get Biden elected!).
Share these soundbites and create your own! You can submit your soundbites here, and we'll help share them on all the platforms! Let the choir we're preaching to sing so loud & proud that others can't help but join us!
TEAMS
Going Bold for Democracy
Meets on the second Tuesday of each month. Next virtual meeting: Tuesday, March 15, at 7PM on Zoom.
Now Focused on the Critically Important State of PA!
Thursdays, 6 - 8pm!
Pennsylvania will be playing a critical role in the upcoming midterms:
There is an open Senate seat previously held by a Republican, and we can flip it!
The state houses are currently both GOP dominated (thanks to prior gerrymandered districts). New districts are more competitive, and there's a good chance to flip one or both of these houses - and prevent election shenanigans, which the current legislature attempts, only to be frustrated by the
Democratic governor. The governor is term-limited, so there is an all-important election for governor (who, in PA, appoints the Secretary of State, who manages elections!)
Phone banking continues every Thursday evening, from 6-8pm, with training!
Contact Beth, (beth@indivisiblenorthampton.org) to get more info and sign up!
Help Bucks County, PA Democrats
Register Folks to Vote by Mail!!
Why Bucks County, PA?
When it comes to electoral impact, Bucks County Pennsylvania has been one of the most important in the U.S. Bucks County Democrats use mail voting to improve turnout, and, in the most recent election, they outpaced every other county in Pennsylvania for mail ballot returns.
In 2022, the mail ballot vote in Bucks County will again have an outsized impact on Pennsylvania's state and federal races. Voters will be voting on an open U.S. Senate seat, a flippable Congressional seat, state legislative seats that are newly competitive because of redistricting, and a new Governor. (Pennsylvania's Democratic governor is term-limited and has been the most significant check on the right-wing Republicans currently in charge of both branches of the state legislature.)
Send vote-by-mail applications this month to make a big difference in PA this November!
Materials will be available in 7 to 10 days. Sign up here to pre-register and you will receive the information when it’s available!
From our friends at Swing Left Western MA:
VOTE FORWARD’S 2022 LETTER WRITING STARTS NOW
Vote Forward, a close collaborator with Swing Left, has launched its 2022 letter-writing campaign and Swing Left Western Mass is ready to get going. As we did in 2020 and 2021, we’ll be preparing “Please Vote” letters aimed at “helping to increase the participation of historically underrepresented communities in the electorate.” By encouraging infrequent voters to vote in this year’s midterm elections, these letters can close the gap in close races and produce victory for Democrats. A few hundred votes, or even less, could make a crucial difference in determining who controls Congress next year.
In 2020, we had about 100 volunteers writing letters to infrequent voters in swing states. Together with several other groups, they prepared and sent some 35,000 letters – our contribution to more than 17 million nationwide. This year’s midterms are no less of a challenge: The “conventional wisdom” is that the president’s party loses congressional seats in the first midterms, but the country can’t afford that. These letters are one tool in the effort to defy the predictions and increase Democrats’ numbers in both the House and the Senate.
If you haven’t prepared these letter before, here’s how it works:
Vote Forward provides pre-printed letters urging the recipients to vote in this fall’s elections. Each letter contains the name and address of the recipient.
For each letter, the volunteer fills in the name of the recipient in the salutation, writes one to three sentences saying why they vote, and signs the letter.
The volunteer then puts the letter in an envelope, hand-addresses the envelope and return address, and seals and stamps the letter.
Letters are held until Vote Forward’s mailing date, close to Election Day for maximum effectiveness. All letters are mailed on that date.
For a detailed description of how to prepare letters, click here.
And here’s how we run our Vote Forward campaign:
You can get your letters in one of three ways:
I can download them for you and email you a batch of letters once a week. You print out the letters and prepare them. You choose the number of letters you want to receive and the day you want to receive them. You can change either of these, or pause or “retire” at any time.
If you don’t have a printer, you can pick up your printed letters each week at one of four locations – Amherst, Leverett, Montague or Northampton – on the day specified by the location host. You take them home and prepare them. Again, you can change your numbers, pause, or retire at any time.
If you already have a Vote Forward account and have experience using it, you can download letters yourself and prepare them. I only ask that you report your numbers to me once a month so I can keep track of our totals.
Once your letters are prepared and in their addressed, sealed and stamped envelopes, you can store them at home until the mailing date or you can drop them off at the same locations used for pickups.
When the mailing date arrives (you’ll get plenty of notice) you take your completed letters to your local post office or to a mailbox and drop them off.
Vote Forward’s campaign is already underway. Now is the time to sign up and get started. (One exception: The Leverett and Northampton pickup/dropoff sites will start the week of March 14. But sign up now and I’ll begin downloading letters for you in time for pickup that week.)
Please click here to sign up or copy this link into your browser window: https://forms.gle/k391Nq12mBUQr6pJ8. I’ll confirm your signup and start downloading your letters right away.
If you have any questions, please contact Michael Dover at mjdover44@gmail.com.
Helping
SELECTED READING
This section of our newsletter features one article written by a subscriber and one article selected by our steering committee. Subscribers to the newsletter are welcome to submit writing by email to info@indivisiblenorthampton.org with the subject line "Newsletter Submission".
The opinions expressed in the writings don't necessarily reflect any consensus of Indivisible Northampton. Heather Cox Richardson's interview with President Biden
When you click the link in your confirmation email, a Zoom page will open in your web browser and the Zoom app will open.
If the Zoom app does not open, here are a few things you can try. You will need to know the meeting id, which is embedded in the address of the Zoom page that opened. On the page that opened in the browser, in the address bar you'll see an address that looks something like this: