Thank you, thank you for all your good work helping voters!
Thank you for your efforts, hours spent, and your valuable vacation and weekend days used to enable voters. We know it’s been a tough week, and many of us have needed time to grieve, but we want to take a moment to express gratitude for all your work and to honor what we accomplished together.
Over the past year we have built skills, relationships, and power. We will use all of that as we move forward together, continuing to fight for democracy and our people.
Since January, we partnered with Common Ground, Vote Riders, The Milwaukee Voter Project, Supermarket Legends, MICAH, Writers for Democratic Action, The League of Women Voters, Souls to the Polls, Citizens Climate Lobby, WUUSAN and UU The Vote.
We sponsored 5 First Church Sunday Forum programs educating attendees about legal and political issues, voting maps, and the Electoral College. We provided training for church members to learn how to register voters and use MyVote.WI.Gov. for registration and voter information.
With our partners we attended and organized rallies and events, and donated funds. We staffed the Social Justice table during Sunday coffee hours, providing information and recruiting volunteers.
We sent over 3000 letters and postcards. We registered and informed voters at various DMV sites, high schools, MATC, and UWM. We helped voters get to Early Voting and find out where to vote by standing in parking lots, talking with voters and handing out flyers. We canvassed with Common Ground to help residents know their options and rights and to register voters.
Many First Church members worked on Election Day as poll workers, election observers, processing ballots at Central Count, giving rides to the polls, and rescuing voters who needed help finding where to vote. We also reminded friends, family and neighbors to vote by “vote tripling” when we voted.
We cannot accurately measure our impact but much of our effort was in Milwaukee and voter turnout was high, 85.1% of Milwaukee registered voters voted, well above statewide and national voter participation.
As a church group we developed personal skills and our capability to connect with folks, learn about their concerns and help them to vote. In so doing we are empowering voters, giving them a voice and building power for change.
The work of defending democracy continues.
We can help this spring, when the progressive majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court is in the balance. That’s critical for maintaining fair maps and for other democracy protection issues. We may need to mobilize on other issues as the new administration takes power in Washington.
May we practice appreciation for all the positive interactions/moving moments we had with individuals in the community and keep that feeling top of mind as we go forward.
Thank you for all your good work to defend democracy. We will use all the work we have done for the last year to keep fighting for our community and our country.
From the Defend Democracy Team at First Church