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IMPORTANT ISSUES! THESE ARE NOT SOLICITATIONS
VOTING BY MAIL IS IMPORTANT TO NUMEROUS PEOPLE - MILITARY MEMBERS
STATIONED OVERSEAS, NATIVE AMERICANS, THOSE WHO ARE DISABLED OR
WITHOUT TRANSPORTATION, THOSE WHO TRAVEL ON BUSINESS AND WILL BE
OUT OF TOWN .... PLEASE SPEAK OUT TO PROTECT MAIL-IN VOTING!
LET'S STOP VOTER DISENFRANCHISEMENT AND VOTER SUPPRESSION!
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This year the Postal Service may decide the outcome of the midterm elections. Right now, the right to vote is at risk because of changes inside the Postal Service that are slowing down mail and delaying when ballots receive a postmark. Every election, we work to educate voters about why voting matters for now and for how our descendants will live. We organize to prevent voter suppression. This year we will need to protect the right to vote in person and by mail. Now, a voter could do everything right, drop their ballot in a mailbox on or before Election Day, and may still have it rejected, because postmarks are not a minor detail. They’re how election officials verify that a ballot was mailed before the deadline. It’s already having an impact. In Oregon, the Postal Service's changes make ballots mailed by voters in Medford, for example, travel approximately 280 miles north to Portland before receiving a postmark and being sent back to be counted by the local election office. This disproportionately impacts Tribal nations and all rural communities. Some reservation residents have to travel up to 70 miles in one direction to receive and send mail. Add in these new delays, and they could make the difference between whether Native peoples’ votes can make Election Day deadlines -- and even be counted at all. It would be funny if it wasn’t both true and absurd, but despite Trump’s obsession with attacking Vote by Mail, that’s exactly how he voted in Florida primaries this year.  But it isn’t funny at all. With nearly a third of all votes in 2024 cast by mail, it’s crucial to ensure that mail-in voting is reliable and efficient. Democracy is about communities driving how governance is carried out. In a real democracy voting is one way communities exercise their rights. Autocracy, on the other hand, is about shutting people out of the process -- limiting their ability to participate and even undermining their belief that voting matters at all. That is exactly why the Trump administration is trying to do everything they can to end voting by mail. Trump has already declared that he will “lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS.” For years, he has smeared Vote by Mail with false claims of “fraud,” not because it is unsafe -- it is secure and backed by decades of bipartisan use -- but because he wants fewer people to vote, and to have less faith in the legitimacy of elections themselves. The truth is clear: mail-in voting strengthens democracy. It expands access for working people, elders, voters with disabilities, and military service members overseas. It gives voters the chance to think and talk with their families and communities before voting. That’s why 72% of states and the District of Columbia now offer vote by mail to all voters, regardless of party. It doesn’t advantage one side or the other -- the advantage goes to the democratic process itself. Hawwih (thank you) for doing everything you can to protect the right to vote. Everything that is sacred is on the ballot in 2026. When Indian Country organizes to protect the right to vote, we prove that our people are doing our part to build a majority movement to overcome autocracy and repression. Mother Earth and future generations are depending on all of us. Judith LeBlanc (Caddo) |
