By Jeanne Spreier
Wilshire is a voting congregation. We’ve learned this from voter registration events we’ve conducted in the past. Not only are you likely to vote, but you also take the time to research candidates and policies, understanding how they will impact your family and neighbors. As the 2024 election approaches, your commitment to voting is crucial.
But your influence doesn’t stop there. As a regular voter, you have the power to inspire others to participate in the democratic process. By encouraging friends, family and coworkers to make a plan to vote, you can help ensure that every voice is heard. Your dedication to informed voting and community engagement can significantly impact the election, amplifying the values we share as a congregation and as citizens.
The information that follows is designed to help you guide new voters as they make their voting plans. For further resources and support, please visit the Christian Advocacy Committee’s tables near the main office and in James Gallery today before or after worship.
Why am I getting all this mail?
It’s the time of year when half your mail is from some candidate and almost all of their messages are screaming that the world will end if you don’t vote for them. Then there are the phone calls and television ads. Sheesh. Patience, grasshopper. It will all be over on Nov. 5-ish (more about that date later).
Here’s what you might find interesting: Campaigns know who you are. If, in Texas, you’ve always voted for one party over another in primaries, you’re one “flavor” of voter. If you switch it up — vote in one party’s primary one year, another the next — campaigns label you “persuadable” whether you are or not. You are going to get flooded with “touches” (mail, phone calls, door knocks), and a lot of the mail and TV ads you get will be driven by your zip code. You may be of a different political persuasion than most of your neighbors, but you’ll get candidate mail and ads that look like what they get.
Why do candidates do this? In 2022, more registered Texas voters did not vote in the governor’s race than voted. In the 2020 presidential election, 67% of registered Texas voters cast a ballot, representing just 52% of the state’s voting-age population. Candidates want you to vote.
Want it to stop? Vote early. Campaigns pull early voting records daily and will drop from their call lists people who’ve already voted. This includes turning in your vote-by-mail ballot.
How to help motivate voters:
The best way to motivate infrequent voters is to knock on their door or call them. Many people find this awkward, but we can all do the moral equivalent: make sure everyone in your circle has a voting plan. That’s the tried and tested method to increase turnout. This is the basic script:
You: I’m going to go early-vote next Wednesday. When are you voting? (Be sure to ask this.)
Them: I haven’t thought about it.
You: Do you want to go with me on Wednesday? I can pick you up.
Them: I’m not even sure I’m registered.
You: Oh, we can check that right now (at vote.org). Here — check your registration.
Them: I guess I am registered.
You: Good! Let’s go Wednesday and then go out to lunch.
Them: Wednesday doesn’t work.
You: I’m flexible. What about Thursday? (Get them to commit to a day, whether they go with you or not.)
Research shows that if people commit to vote to a specific person in their circle, they tend to follow through.
If you’re voting by mail …
Fill your ballot out immediately and return it ASAP; either put it in a mailbox or, better yet, drop it off at your county election office. Here are some startling statistics about mail-in ballots in Texas: In the March 2022 primary, a non-presidential election year, at least 18,000 mail-in votes were rejected in the state’s six largest counties. The Texas Tribune reported: “The rates of rejections range from 6% to nearly 22% in Bexar County, where almost 4,000 of the more than 18,000 people who returned mail-in ballots saw their votes discarded. In most cases, ballots were rejected for failing to comply with tighter voting rules enacted by Texas legislature in 2021 that require voters to provide their driver’s license number or a partial Social Security number to vote by mail.”
So who’s going to win?
Everyone gets excited about knowing the night of Nov. 5 what election outcomes are, but the presidential race very likely won’t be called that evening. Here’s why: polls on the West Coast don’t close until 9 p.m. Texas time, and six West Coast states — California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington — allow elections to be conducted by mail. It takes longer to count mail-in ballots than in-person ballots, sometimes a lot longer.
This is a fun, exhausting and sometimes challenging time of year. Remember, unless you’re a white male landowner over the age of 21, someone fought for your right to vote.
■ Jeanne Spreier is a Wilshire member and serves as a volunteer deputy registrar.