Photo by Javier Sierra
In order to protect our environment, we have to protect our democracy—and it all starts with our ability to vote and have those votes count. As the Sierra Club's national director of policy, advocacy and legal, I've spent decades fighting for democracy, environmental justice, and racial justice among many other things. As an activist, I've volunteered as a poll monitor for the last 16 years, working to make sure everyone has equitable access to the ballot box. In 2004, I was the national field director for the Voter Protection Campaign of the DNC. And for the last three presidential elections, I've returned to Cleveland, where I grew up, to work against voter suppression as an attorney.
Voter suppression isn't new, and it is directly tied to our ability to fight for a clean environment for everyone. Through my decades of experience working with environmental justice communities, it's been clear that people who are living in places with the worst pollution in the country—like Cancer Alley in Texas and Louisiana, and cities like Detroit and Flint—are some of the same people experiencing rampant voter suppression. The way we fight back against these attacks on our democracy and our neighbors of color is to show up in solidarity and be better accomplices. Our common liberation is connected in each other's liberation.1
Many of the same tactics employed during the Jim Crow era to suppress Black and Brown voters are still happening today, just in more covert, less obvious, ways. State legislatures and election officials are targeting Black and Brown voters with voter ID laws, poll taxes, closed polling places, and voter roll purges.2
We are stronger together, which is why I'm personally asking you to join me in helping ensure a safe and democratic voting process. You don't need to have any special skills to be a poll monitor. You'll be trained and given resources to help protect the vote, and there are options to volunteer both from home and in person.
This year I am the cochair of the Election Protection Program of the National Bar Association3 (the nation's oldest association of Black lawyers), and we plan to deploy 5,000 lawyers and laypeople across the country. We cannot allow Donald Trump and his band of white supremacists to rob us of our fundamental right to participate in our democracy. Their efforts to sow chaos and stoke fear will not stop us from exercising our inalienable rights. This year, experts are predicting unprecedented activity at voting locations around the country, and poll monitors and election protection volunteers are the first line of defense against anything or anyone trying to suppress people's votes.
Much of the role of poll monitor volunteers is troubleshooting. For example, issues may arise for folks who are disabled. Sometimes the ramps to polling places are not stable and I've had to find a hammer and nails to bang ramps back in place! Often it is a matter of simply keeping people in the line during long wait times to vote and caring about them as people as they exercise their civic duty.
Amid a global pandemic, polling places closing, and restrictive voting laws, there are unprecedented threats to everyone's right to vote and for their vote to be counted. This is why we need thousands of election protection volunteers around the country.
Together, we can harness the awesome power of the Sierra Club community to make sure our democracy works for all of us. We're joining together with a large coalition at ProtectTheVote.net, including Common Cause, the ACLU, National Bar Association, and the NAACP. You can join me and sign up to be a nonpartisan election protection volunteer.
We must protect our democracy. Because America should be a place where everyone counts and where every vote is counted. We can't have democracy if votes are suppressed. And we can't save the environment if folks living in the most polluted communities can't vote to elect leaders who will fight for them.
Being a nonpartisan election protection volunteer is one of the most important things we can do to protect our democracy—and in turn, our environment.
Sign up to take action from home or in person by serving as a nonpartisan election protection volunteer.
Resources & References:
1 - Sam Zacher, The Trouble. "Your liberation has to be tied to their liberation": An Interview with Leslie Fields Aug 8, 2019
2 - Southern Poverty Law Center, "Seven years after Shelby County vs. Holder, voter suppression permeates the South.
New York Times, How Voter Suppression Could Affect the Presidential Election, July 27, 2020
Vox, How Shelby County v. Holder upended voting rights in America, June 25, 2020
The Thurgood Marshall Institute At The NAACP Legal Defense And Educational Fund, Democracy Diminished: State and Local Threats to Voting Post-Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder. June 2020.
3 - Learn more about the National Bar Association at nationalbar.org and their election protection program at nbaelectionprotection.com