Take action today and tell your State Senator that voter suppression has no place in Texas, and that they must vote NO on the confirmation of Secretary of State David Whitley.
In January the Texas Secretary of State — who is a nominee and NOT confirmed yet — issued an advisory that drove Ken Paxton, Greg Abbott and even Donald Trump into a froth of voter-fraud-conspiracy theorizing.
To recap: Texas officials flagged 95,000 voters for citizenship reviews. Now their entire case is falling apart. The vast majority of people on the list likely registered to vote after becoming naturalized citizens. But unless the SOS rescinds the advisory, every county in Texas is expected to commit resources to checking the citizenship status of people on the list. Some counties have already sent out letters, while others continue to check the rolls and clean up the mess the Secretary of State made.
In 2018 Texans voted in record numbers for a midterm election, and much of the growth in turnout came from Latino voters. The timing of this attempted voter purge is suspicious, and despite the massive data failures lawmakers are using the purge as the basis for enacting more vote-suppressing legislation this session.
In just his first few months in office, David Whitley has proven his incompetence and that he’s inadequate to the task of managing elections and voter rolls. He has lost the public’s trust and shown a chilling lack of respect for our citizens’ right to vote. We believe a Secretary of State should protect, defend and expand our access to the ballot, not create a climate of fear to suppress the vote.
As of now, three lawsuits regarding the attempted voter purge are pending against Whitley. As of Thursday, February 14, the Senate Nominations committee had yet to vote on his nomination, despite having held two hearings.
We join with our allies who have filed these lawsuits, and the many others who believe David Whitley must not be our Secretary of State.
In addition to calling, emails are an effective way to reach your elected representatives. If your reps don’t appear in these campaigns, you can usually find a contact form on their website. Another alternative is ResistBot, which allows you to contact your reps via text message, Twitter, or Facebook—it’s fun!
Polls close at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, November 6. If you’d like your event to be included, please email noah@indivisibleaustin.com with details.
Election Night Watch Party for Mike Siegel!
You’ve volunteered, knocked doors, made calls, written postcards, and – most importantly – voted! Now it’s time to celebrate all of our hard work as we watch the results roll in on Election Night!
Julie Oliver and Indivisible TX25 East Watch Party
Contigo
2027 Anchor Ln.
Legislate This! & The Show Up Election Night Watch Party
Legislate This! is a burlesque benefit that raises money for our local Planned Parenthood chapter. The Show Up is a group of Austin artists looking to engender more civic action. Please join both groups at the North Door for a night of patriotic celebration. Civic duty and civic booty collide on Election Night!
Join the your neighbors and Wells Branch Pop-Up #1 volunteers for an election night watch party! Weather permitting we will set up a screen/projector in the backyard to watch the results come in. Please bring a lawn chair and/or blanket and snacks to share!
Join the Texas Democratic Party and Travis County Democratic Party with Lupe Valdez, Mike Collier, Justin Nelson, Joi Chevalier, Miguel Suazo and more!
If you’ve voted in Travis County, you are familiar with the voting machines that bear more resemblance to rotary telephones than to any technology currently in use. Those machines have been buggy in the past few elections, and this one is no different—except that there is massive national attention on the race at the top of the ticket between Beto O’Rourke and Ted Cruz.
Zenén Jaimes Pérez of the Texas Civil Right Project explained to GQ that “for nearly two decades, Texas has relied on Hart eSlate voting machines, which look sort of like giant PalmPilots and are manipulated using a selection wheel and an ENTER button. Manipulating both of these things at the same time, it seems, is what can lead to unintended and very unwanted results.”
When voting a straight-party ballot, wait at least 3-5 seconds for all choices to be rendered on the eSlate voting machines. Counties in which voters have longer ballots may require additional time to allow the screens to load fully.
Once all the candidate choices for that particular party have been fully loaded, take your time to slowly review each choice in each race before advancing to the next screen.
When advancing to the next screen, be sure the screen is fully loaded before scrolling through to the subsequent pages.
Once you have reached the summary page, carefully review each choice listed to ensure the candidate selected is, in fact, the candidate for whom you wish to cast your vote.
If you find that one or more of your choices are displayed incorrectly on the summary page, hit the ‘PREV’ button and choose the candidate for whom you wish to cast your vote.
If any issues persist, ask for assistance from an poll worker at your polling location, and the poll worker will ensure that the machine is working properly and advise you on the proper steps to take to cast a ballot with only the candidates of your choosing.
What to do if you encounter a problem at the voting booth
Call 866-OUR-VOTE. The Texas Civil Right Project (TCRP) is fielding calls for our state. We know and trust the people handling those calls. When we first heard about the problem with the eSlate machines, we contacted our friends on the election protection team at TCRP, and will continue to follow up with them when we hear about voting challenges.
Texas Civil Rights Project, League of Women Voters-Texas, and Voto Latino are among the groups that make up the Texas Election Protection Coalition. When you call 866-OUR-VOTE your call isn’t going to a random call center somewhere outside of Texas. Although the number is a national hotline, calls for Texas will be answered by locally trained election protection volunteers who can assist with recommendations of what to do in the moment, and then help elevate problems to attorneys. TCRP has trained election protection volunteers across the state, and will continue trainings in the DFW and Houston areas this week.
The hotline is available in several languages. Please report voting challenges when you see them. Don’t ever leave the polling place feeling as though something didn’t go quite right with your ballot.
English | 866-OUR-VOTE | 866-687-8683
Spanish / English | 888-VE-Y-VOTA | 888-839-8682
Asian Languages / English | 888-API-VOTE | 888-274-8683
Arabic / English | 844-YALLA-US | 844-925-5287
Get ready to march to the polls—October 22 at 5:30 p.m.
— Sara *Texans, vote early Oct 22-Nov 2* Clough (@radicalcraft) October 18, 2018
Come celebrate the first day of early voting—and show fellow voters how fun voting can be when you bring friends!
We’ve recruited an Indivisible Austin Marching Band for this, and it should be a grand time: we’ll kick things off with some tunes at the Capitol, before marching over to the nearest polling location at the Travis County Granger Building. We’ll convene near the Capitol south steps at 5:30 PM, rain or shine.
If you’re interested in joining the band, please reach out to Cindy Sadler (cindy@cindysadler.com) with your name, instrument, and email address.
Can you help take photos or video? Please message Indivisible Austin directly or via this event. We’re not done after Monday: throughout early voting, we’re looking for folks to lead and participate in local “marches” to the polls (maybe even with your own music?). Sign up to lead a parade, a marching band, mariachis, or just a group of fine folks doing their civic duty in the 2018 midterm elections!
By August 7: Tell the Census Bureau to remove its citizenship question from the 2020 census form
For the first time since 1950, the Census Bureau will ask all U.S. households about citizenship status, specifically, “Is this person a citizen of the United States?”
Because of the rapid growth in the Texas population in the last decade, Texas is poised to gain up to three new congressional representatives and millions of dollars for our state. However, the proposed citizenship question on the 2020 Census could prove to be a barrier between this new representation and funding if many Texans are concerned about filling out the Census because of the climate of fear caused by today’s politics.
The Census is not intended to count the number of U.S. citizens in each state. The Census is intended to count every person in the state regardless of their citizenship status.
“Abysmal compliance with a decades-old state law is leaving at least 180,000 high school seniors off the current voter rolls, according to a new report.”
“The authors of the report…call on the secretary of state’s office to automatically send the forms to schools, rather than requiring administrators to request them; offer online trainings for voter registrars; and create a publicly available database showing which schools are registering students.”
Tell Cornyn and Cruz: No Kavanaugh hearings before midterms
Our dear old friends John Cornyn and Ted Cruz sit on the Judiciary Committee, deciding things like whether hearings can be held on a Supreme Court nominee whose millions of pages of records have not been released. The National Archives needs until October to compile the initial request from Senator Grassley—which still does not include records from Kavanaugh’s time in the White House. Yet, the GOP-controlled Senate appears to be pushing for September hearings.
I am asking [Cruz/Cornyn] to commit to a thorough vetting and questioning of Judge Kavanaugh’s qualifications for the Supreme Court.
We need to know where Judge Kavanaugh stands on key legal rulings, his conduct and ethics in office, and his employment track record. This includes a full recounting of his documents while serving as staff secretary for President Bush White and all documents available from the National Archives.
With that in mind, I’m calling on [Cruz/Cornyn] to ensure that the National Archive has until October to finish their full review of documents—as requested. We cannot and should not proceed without a full picture of Kavanaugh’s background.
How your voices are making a difference
In Austin, local activists and lawmakers pressured ICE to drop a request to detain a woman jailed two weeks ago for assault while she was experiencing a mental heath crisis
A record number of states are introducing reform measures to combat partisan gerrymandering
A federal judge ruled that Donny must fully restore DACA
Thursday, Aug. 9, 8:30-9:30 AM, 1105 N IH35 – Indivisible Rosedale Huddle brings us banner drops Thursdays this August. This week: make Ted sweat his constituents! (Facebook event)
Saturday, Aug. 11, 11AM-11PM, Fiesta Gardens (festival) & Texas State Capitol > Congress Ave (parade) – Happy Pride, Austinites! Free parade portion runs 8-11 PM, starting at the Capitol, continuing down Congress onto 4th (Facebook event) More events at the Austin Pride website and the Chronicle’s Gay Place roundup.
Save the Date: Monday, Aug. 27, 9AM-2PM, Robert B. Rowling Hall, 300 W Martin Luther King Jr Blvd – Texas Disability Issues Forum (TDIF) brings together members of the Texas disability community, major candidates for statewide office, and disability advocates (Event link at REV UP!)
Countdown: 91 Days to November 6
With only thirteen weeks between now and midterms, every hour of effort, every weekend of work counts. This week, add your drop to the growing #BlueWave:
Ask three people you know or meet if they are registered to vote at their current address. If they’re not sure, help them check using the Texas Secretary of State’s tool here. If they aren’t registered, help them change that by reaching out to us at ask@indivisibleaustin.com, and we’ll get them in touch with an Indivisible VDR. If they or you have any questions about voter registration, please use the same address!
Texas is overwhelmingly a non-voting state. Changing that reality starts by changing our shared culture—which also means talking (early and often!) about voting.
Congress Critter of the Week: Rep. Pete Sessions
Pete Sessions isn’t one of ours, but he is a representative from Texas, and he did hit peak Republican this week.
In attempting to explain his virtuous view of how to handle divorce proceedings, Pete managed to blame, for her own murder, a woman killed by her husband. He also blamed the divorce court judge—because they were unfair to the wealthy, presumably white, man.
“A big-time guy in Highland Park, who went and killed his wife, just gunned her down. And that was because the judge was unfair, and the woman was unfair. And she demanded something, and he was out. And it was frustration.”
It could’ve happened in Austin, but didn’t: 118 goats freely roamed a Boise, ID, neighborhood on Friday after escaping the enclosures of the local We Rent Goats business.
They say an army marches on its belly. That’s true for an army of block walking canvassers, phone bankers, and letter writers too.
Be a part of the movement by making a contribution today! Your gift of $25 or $50 could provide the coffee and breakfast tacos that get us and America over the line.
Take Action: Rebuke Trump for the Debacle in Helsinki
Tell your reps that Trump must be rebuked for his comments in Helsinki
But first, here’s Lyin’ Cornyn:
“Nobody disputes the fact that they were unsuccessful in changing a single vote or affecting the outcome.” —Sen. John Cornyn, speaking on the Senate floor after Trump’s abysmal, traitorous performance in Helsinki.
It’s a lie. And a common lie among Republicans unwilling to accept an uncomfortable truth: that Russian information warfare might very well have swung the election to Trump.
Because it seems like a year ago, read the Washington Post’s chronology of the Helsinki debacle to refresh your memory. Then, call your reps!
“Given the additional indictments concerning attempts to hack into our election system, and with November midterms coming up, I would like to know how Secretary Pablos is protecting the integrity of elections in Texas.”
Tell John Cornyn and Ted Cruz that Brett Kavanaugh’s White House records must be released
During Elena Kagan’s nomination process, 11,000 of her emails and 160,000 documents from her tenure in the Clinton White House were released to the public. So why would Brett Kavanaugh—who served in the George W. Bush White House—be treated any differently? That is the question for Senators Cornyn and Cruz, both of whom serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Call and ask them. We have a right to know.
Ryan Bounds' racially-charged college writings convinced Republicans to oppose his nomination to the 9th Circuit. How can Republicans possibly argue that Brett Kavanaugh's records from the WHITE HOUSE aren't relevant to a Supreme Court nomination? #ReleaseTheRecords
— Sen Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) July 19, 2018
Our government continues to separate families at the border and putting toddlers on trial—demand a stop to it!
The Russia news overshadowed the ongoing border crisis last week. It’s important to remain focused on the cruelty that the Trump administration continues to inflict on blameless children and their frequently desperate parents. July 26th is the court-ordered deadline to reunite most families. The Texas Tribune has expanded its coverage at the border. Get caught up—and then call your reps.
“The Trump administration has summoned at least 70 infants to immigration court for their own deportation proceedings since Oct. 1, according to Justice Department data provided to Kaiser Health News.”
“On the brink of being released from detention and reunited with children separated from them sometimes months ago, migrant parents are held at a South Texas facility in a sort of limbo — not free to leave, but without access to phones or commissary accounts that regular detainees get.”
#BeATexasVoter Phone Bank with Indivisible founders and co-executive directors Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin
Sunday, Jul. 29, 1-3 PM, Austin History Center Come join Indivisible Austin and our special guests, Indivisible founders and co-executive directors Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin, at our #BeATexasVoter kickoff phone bank! We’ll be just about 100 days out from the November midterms, and we’re celebrating by calling prospective voters to make sure they know why this election is so important, and to get them engaged NOW so they’re ready to go to the polls as soon as early voting starts. There will be snacks and swag for all phone bankers!
YOU WILL NEED TO BRING:
a laptop or tablet
your cellphone
earbuds
If you’ve never participated in a phone bank, it’s easy! We’ll teach you!
Without a doubt, and this is saying something, @JohnCornyn is the worst member of the U.S. Senate. Sniveling, cowardly and stupid as an addled coyote. https://t.co/F0QJWU65VA
It’s record-breakingly hot in Austin this week. Elsewhere, Buttercup the bulldog enjoyed a kiddie pool of ice:
Funding the Fight
You made it! You’re all the way at the bottom of the email, but if you look back at the top you’ll see something very important: Help Lead Indivisible Austin’s GOTV Work.
We have to knock on doors, call, text, mail, organize and build community throughout Central Texas to do our part to bring some accountability and decency to DC and to our own capitol here in Austin.
You know how important this is. Be a part of the solution by supporting our efforts NOW so we can bring change in November.
The primary election runoff is May 22, with early voting from May 14-18. Several state and US districts are holding runoff elections. If you voted in the primary, you must vote in the same party’s runoff. But if you did not vote in the primary, you can vote in either party’s runoff.
Below are upcoming candidate forums, debates, and meet-and-greets. We’ll update this page as more events are confirmed.
Wednesday, May 2nd
HD46 Democratic Runoff Debate
7:30 p.m. at Wesley United Methodist Church, 1164 San Bernard St. Hosted by KUT Austin.
Join us for a debate between the candidates running for the Democratic nomination for Texas House District 46.
Sheryl Cole for State Representative and Jose “Chito” Vela for State Representative are in the May 22nd runoff for the seat currently held by long-time State Representative Dawnna Dukes.
Town Hall for Our Lives featuring TX25 candidate Chris Perri and HD47 candidate Vikki Goodwin
5 p.m. at James Bowie High School, 4103 W Slaughter Ln.
Student-organized discussion with local Austin leaders as well as candidates for Congress. Panelists will include the local leaders and candidates as well as students from James Bowie High School. Panelists will include:
Chris Perri (candidate TX-25)
Vikki Goodwin (candidate TX-47)
Chris Evoy (AISD Police Department)
Dr. Craig Shapiro (Associate Superintendent of High Schools AISD)
Join to hear a Q&A session between the students and local leaders. Audience members will be able to ask questions and get involved towards the end of the event. Principals from the AISD district will be formally invited to listen in.
Primary forum w/ TX25 candidates and HD47 candidates
1:30 p.m. at Laura’s Library, 9411 Bee Caves Rd. Hosted by Indivisible Eanes/West Austin and Cuernavaca Action Group
Come meet the candidates for Congressional District 25 and Texas House District 27. This non-partisan event will give you an opportunity to speak with each candidate in a small group and ask them the questions that matter to you.
1:30 – 2:15 TX25 – Candidates invited are Julie Oliver, Chris Perri, and Roger Williams
2:30 – 3:00 HD47 – Candidates invited are Elaina Fowler, Vikki Goodwin, and Paul Workman
Save the Date: Governors’ Debate with Lupe Valdez and Andrew White. 6 p.m.
6 p.m. at St James Episcopal 1941 Webberville Rd. Austin, Texas 78721
Join State Tejano Democrats, Texas Coalition of Black Democrats, Texas Young Democrats, Texas College Democrats, Texas Stonewall Democrats, and Travis County Democratic Party for a Grassroots Debate, with Lupe Valdez and Andrew White.
The debate will be moderated by Gromer Jeffers, political writer for the Dallas Morning News and Co-Host of Lone Star Politics on KXAS (NBC5). The event will be held at St. James Episcopal Church, ten minutes from downtown Austin. A live stream of the debate will be available at KXAN.com.
6:00 p.m. – Doors open
6:30 p.m. – Programing and instructions
7:00 p.m. – Debate
A limited number of tickets will be made available to the public on Tuesday May 8, at 6:00pm CST. The link will be published to this Facebook event page.
On the day of the debate, tickets will be honored up until 6:50pm, when all remaining available seats will be given to members of the public waiting in line at the venue.
Saturday, May 12th
***The Wilco Indivisible event originally scheduled for Saturday has been cancelled. We’ll update with any new events or if it’s rescheduled***
Monday, May 14th
TX21 Indivisible ATX Primary Runoff Candidate Forum
7 p.m. at FiberCove, 1700 S Lamar Blvd #338. Hosted by TX21 Indivisible.
Hear from candidates who want to represent Texas’ 21st Congressional District, and are headed to the primary runoff in just a few weeks:
Joseph Kopser (D)
Mary Wilson (D)
This is a rare chance to hear candidates from both parties at the same forum. There is only room for 100 attendees, so please arrive early to grab your seat.
10 a.m. at Sun City Ballroom 2 Texas Dr. Bldg A., Georgetown, TX. Hosted by Sun City Democrats, Florence Indivisible, Sun City Indivisible, Wilco Indivisible, and Cedar Park Indivisible.
Please join us for a debate between TX31 Congressional Candidates MJ Hegar and Dr. Christine Mann, moderated by Patrick Svitek of the Texas Tribune.
On March 13, 2018 Democrat Conor Lamb won the special election for Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District—which Trump carried by almost 20 points. Running for an open seat is generally easier than running against an incumbent, but it’s worth noting that Trump won by a smaller margin in every one of Austin’s “safe” GOP House districts.
Of course, none of this matters if people don’t get out and vote, beginning with the runoff elections in May and then the midterms in November.
Primary Election Runoff
(NOTE: When you vote in the runoff you must vote in the same party election as you did in the primary. You cannot switch to vote in the other party’s election.)
Last day to register to vote: April 23
Early voting: May 14 – May 18
Election day: May 22
Midterm Elections
Last Day to Register to Vote: Tuesday, October 9, 2018
First Day of Early Voting: Monday, October 22, 2018
Last Day of Early Voting: Friday, November 2, 2018
Donald abruptly shut down his sham voting fraud commission, formed after his false claims that it was voter fraud that resulted in his losing the popular vote by 3 million. The commission had been beset by problems since its inception, from its illegal requests of states to provide voter information to lawsuits to its exclusion of Democrats in its functions—and hasn’t produced a scrap of evidence to support its assertions of widespread voter fraud.
Mike Pence and his family were greeted by their neighbors on their Colorado ski vacation with Make America Gay Again banners.
Alabama senator Doug Jones was sworn into the Senate, closing the GOP majority to 51-49…a narrow margin that may shift entirely away from Republicans in 2018.
Washington State’s attorney general has filed suit against Motel 6 for routinely handing over to federal immigration agents info about registered guestswithout any reasonable suspicion, probable cause or search warrants, including circling names that sounded Latino.
Fusion GPS published this op-ed in the New York Times defending their investigation that yielded the infamous dossier on Donald (you know the one…complete with golden showers). In it the company discusses the 21 hours of testimony they gave to three congressional committees that the GOP-led committees stifled, and they share some of their testimony the congressional committees have refused to release about the dossier that was funded by Republicans as well as the Clinton campaign.
Our feature story: The Crimson Tide turned blue this week as Alabama decided to send demagogue, scofflaw, and accused child molester Roy Moore packing (and the horse he rode to the polls on), handing the win to Democrat Doug Jones, a man who made his mark defending a little girl against the KKK in 1963. While we might hope that the spread between decency and depravity had been greater than 1.5 points—even in Alabama—it’s a positive sign: the victory narrows the GOP majority in the Senate to just 2, and sends the first Democrat to Congress from Alabama since 1992.
Two of Donald’s more controversial federal judge nominees—and that’s saying something—will not be confirmed, says Chuck Grassley, head of the committee responsible for confirming them. Jeff Mateer—who called a transgender first grader part of “Satan’s plan”—and Brett Talley have made public comments that were racially and gender discriminatory, and Talley—who has practiced law for just three years and never tried a case—was nominated in a party-line vote despite being rated as “not qualified” by the American Bar Association. Donny, who hates it when he is doing so much losing, pulled his nominees—and may wind up pulling another, who couldn’t answer even the most basic legal questions in his nomination hearing.
Donald’s campaign adviser (and conspiracy theorist) Roger Stone is working on a book called The Fall of Trump, predicting that Mueller and the many (17 at last count) sexual-harassment allegations against Donald will bring him down.
His popularity might be summed up by the normally neutral USA Today, who joined the chorus of voices declaring Donald is unfit for office, but went even further in an editorial, saying he is “uniquely awful. His sickening behavior is corrosive to the enterprise of a shared governance based on common values and the consent of the governed…. A president who’d all but call a senator a whore is unfit to clean toilets in Obama’s presidential library or to shine George W. Bush’s shoes.”
And with that, happy holidays to you all, and may Robert Mueller bring us something we all really, really want this year.