It’s hard to believe that it is mid-October already. Hopefully, you have been able to get out to enjoy the beauty of the fall season. For those of us in the U.S. and B.C., this also means elections are underway. I had the opportunity and privilege of voting this past weekend. I got my ballot on Saturday and turned it in on Sunday. It felt great! I encourage all of you to make a plan to vote, to do it early if you can, and encourage everyone you know to vote.
Many of you in the U.S. work for nonpartisan 501c3 organizations, and you may be wondering what your organization can do around the election, especially this year. As you have in other years, you may be involved in nonpartisan voter education and get-out-the-vote efforts. Keep it up!
This year, you may want to consider adding more activities and messaging to call for safe, fair, and transparent elections. None of our conservation and environmental work can move forward unless we have a functioning democracy, and fair elections are a bedrock of our democracy. So please consider what else you can do in these unprecedented times. For example, you may want to volunteer to be a poll watcher, if you can safely. Check out a recorded webinar that TREC hosted with RoadMap on tactics for De-escalating Conflict and be sure to have a plan to stay safe.
After November 3, we need to stay involved and call for all votes be counted. Given the number of mail-in votes expected, it may take longer than prior elections to count the votes. We can call on our local and state officials to take the time needed to count all the votes, and for the process to be fair and transparent. And, then we can ask local, state, and federal governments to abide by the results.
To find out more about what you can –and can’t– do as a 501c3 organization, please join us for a special webinar with a guest from Alliance of Justice. Even if you have attended earlier sessions with Alliance for Justice about election activity, you may want to attend this new session because we will discuss potential activities that your organization can do after November 3 to advocate for a fair and transparent process.
So please vote! And please join with others in your community who are working hard to preserve and protect our system of democracy. This is a time for us all to stand together for our future.
Be well and safe,
Megan
Megan Seibel
TREC Executive Director