Postcards to Rescue Voting Rights for At Risk Voters
Time to refresh the ink in your pens and shake out those sleepy hands! There has never been a more important election year. Together we are combating voter suppression in a very powerful way. I am so grateful for your help.
- We expect to have the postcard packets for the first campaign (Wisconsin Supreme Court) ready to pick up beginning Feb 15.
- As before UUCM will front the cost of the packets ($13 for each packet of 20 stamps, address lists, postcards, info labels etc.) Reimbursement from all who are able allows UUCM to keep these campaigns going. Ways to reimburse are listed below.
- Because the biggest challenge in all of this is managing the inventory of packet contents it is extremely helpful if you email me ASAP with an “order” of the number of packets you will do. It also helps me manage cash flow if you reimburse the cost when you pick up your packets.
- As before we don’t want the cost of the packet to keep anyone from writing these highly effective postcards. The costs of “scholarshipped” packets are reimbursed by others who can give $ but not write, and some who donate funds above the amount needed to cover the packets they take. I’m thrilled to announce that the Nevada County Peace and Justice Center has once again pledged a large donation.
- Feel free to invite your friends to participate. I heard about lots of postcard writing parties happening last year. And once again we will have a Monday morning postcard writing party at UUCM every Monday 9-12 starting Feb 16. Great way to get to know people who share your values and make postcard writing more fun. 🙂
Here are the details from the Center for Common Ground.
February – please email me at gail@gjv4kids.com ASAP how many packets you plan to do so I can order supplies
The Wisconsin Supreme Court election is on April 7. Wisconsin progressives continue to fight for balance in their Supreme Court. This will be a small and brief campaign.
Feb 15: Postcard campaign launches at UUCM
Mail March 9 through March 23.
March/June/Fall – March will be here before we know it so knowing how many packets you plan to do for the primaries will also be very helpful. In case you want to wait to let me know I will ask you again when we hear when the primary campaigns kick off.
Midterm primaries are beginning March in some states, and June in others. Especially concerning are GA, AL, VA, NC and TX. As redistricting battles are decided, ROV expects to take on one or more of these primary battles, but it will depend on available funding and court decisions. (BTW Center for Common Ground accepts donations to pay for address lists and other key costs. Here’s the link to their donation site if you’d like to help. https://givebutter.com/CFCG26)
The Midterm General Election is Nov 3. ROV will likely begin writing in June or July, and begin mailing in the fall, probably September through Oct, and will be based on early voting dates, which vary per state. I’ll ask for your packet “orders” when I hear when the campaigns will begin.
Looking forward to hearing from you all.
Ways to Cover Costs of Postcard Packets:
Option 1: Online at UUCM Website https://www.uugrassvalley.org/give/
· Scroll down to the Postcards icon. Click and make your donation
Option 2: Put Your Donation in The Donation Jar in UUCM Foyer
· Write your name on one of the small envelopes by the jar
· Put cash or check to UUCM in the envelope
· Put the envelope in the jar.
Gail Johnson Vaughan, PsyD Social Justice Advocate
530-277-6571
Greg Palast On Theft of 26 and 28 Elections in Georgia
From:palastreport@gregpalast.com
| The real story of the FBI raid on Fulton County, AtlantaYou are watching the theft of 2026 before your eyesby Greg Palast for The Hartmann Report and RawStory | January 29, 2026 For god’s sake, let’s get to the REAL agenda behind Wednesday’s-FBI raid on the Fulton County elections office. IT’S NOT ABOUT THE 2020 ELECTION. The warrant says the FBI wants the envelopes from the 2020 election to hunt for crimes. But that’s just the legal excuse for the storm trooping. This is NOT, as the media seems to think, about Trump’s attempt to prove he won the 2020 race, as if he’s some political Captain Ahab was trying to chase the Moby Dick of 2020 revenge. This is all about 2026 and 2028. Look at a map. Fulton County is the heart of “Blacklanta.” And Atlanta is the electoral heart of Georgia. And Georgia is the swingiest of swing states. If Republicans don’t cut down the Black vote in Atlanta, they lose the crucial seat now held by Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff. And in 2028, the GOP, if they don’t suppress the vote in Fulton, they lose the White House. Fulton was the fulcrum of Trump’s loss in 2020 and could spell doomsday for Republicans in 2028. So, how exactly do you stop Fulton County Black folk (and the LGBTQ community and the hipsters who left rural Georgia because they hate their parents) from voting? The answer is in one word: DROP-BOX.Surveillance footage of a drop box in Atlanta, used in the film 2000 Mules as evidence of a “mule” whom filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza claimed was paid to stuff this and 26 other ballot boxes. According to D’Souza, this was “the smoking gun! O.J. Simpson…leaving the scene of a crime!” But it doesn’t show anything more than a Black man voting.Follow me on this. First, let me explain to my White readers a fact about African-Americans: In the majority, they vote early, having suffered the cruel absurdity of six-hour lines on Election Day. (And remember, it’s a FELONY crime in Georgia to give an elderly voter standing in line, thirsty a bottle of water). From long, sad experience, Black voters have learned to use early voting opportunities, especially mail-in ballots that can be placed in a drop-box. For example, in the election run-off following the 2020 vote, which put two Georgia Democrats into the US Senate, over a million mail-in ballots (1,084,021) were cast, mainly in drop-boxes, mostly in Fulton/Atlanta. Republicans took note. So, in a bill signed by GOP Governor Brian Kemp, the infamous SB202, the state declared all-out war on early voting, especially early votes placed in secure drop-boxes. First, the state slashed the number of drop-boxes allowed in Atlanta and Savannah the two big cities with the urban Black population, by 77%. Early voting days, when you can use the drop box, were cut from 60 to just seven (!). And drop boxes — meant to serve voters who can only vote when they get off work at night — were sealed up at night in state office buildings. The result, not reported by a single US outlet (except, God bless him, Thom Hartmann) was that the number of mail-in ballots cast dropped by 83% — 83%! — from over a million to 0.2 million (191,286) by the run-off of 2022. Why? It goes back to what Donald Trump calls, correctly, one of the most influential documentaries of all time: 2000 Mules. The film, premiered by Trump at Mar-a-Lago, accused 2000 Black men of taking $10 from George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg and Stacey Abrams to stuff drop-boxes with tens of thousands of fraudulent ballots, especially in Fulton County. It was the perfect Sturm for the right, a stimulating concoction of racism and anti-Semitism. There wasn’t a bit of evidence, of course, but it looked convincing to MAGA-nauts. Every single drop-box in Georgia has a video camera over it to prevent fraud, and the videos are public. So, the Trump front called True the Vote, showed videos of Black men “stuffing” the drop boxes with extra ballots. Except it wasn’t true. The “star” criminal was a Black man accused of “running from the scene of crime like OJ Simpson.” In fact, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is Republican controlled, ran all over the state to arrest each Black alleged ballot stuffer (a felony crime) — but found that every one, EVERY ONE, was a legal voter. The man accused of thievery was Mark Andrews, who is a Verizon executive who legally dropped his family’s ballots in the drop box. But, as LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter says, “He was seen guilty of a crime because he was Black.” That, literally, was the only “evidence” of the crime. Note: I want you to see Mark Andrews, supposed Black “criminal” supposedly caught in the act of VWB, Voting While Black. Next Thursday, February 5, at 6:30pm Central time (4:30pm Pacific), chapters of Indivisible will host a special online showing of my film, Vigilantes Inc., America’s New Vote Suppression Hitmen, which rips Trump’s True the Vote a new one. If you’re in the Chicago area, you can attend the live showing with Q&A to follow. Early voting, mail-in voting and casting an early vote in a drop were the keys to Joe Biden’s victory in 2020, key to a huge surge in minority and student votes nationwide. And massive suppression of early, mail-in and drop-box votes were key to Trump’s triumphant return. (Did anyone note that, seen from the Oval, the demolition of the East Wing only leaves the Right Wing.) Following the 2020 election, over 20 Red States passed laws eliminating or restricting drop-boxes. And in every single case, legislators cited the bullshit “evidence” of 2000 Mules. Fact check: The state of Georgia recounted and reviewed every single Fulton County drop-box and mail in ballot and didn’t find one single forged ballot. Every vote had an identified, verified vote. Not ONE ballot. White Democrats don’t seem to understand how important early drop-off votes mean to Black and student communities. But the Republicans understand it completely. In fact, GOP Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said that, had he not gone to court and stopped Houston from mailing out absentee ballots to all voter, “Donald Trump would have lost Texas.” Texas! (Note: Houston has the largest number of Black voters of any city in America. By seeking every envelope from drop-box and absentee voters, Attorney General Pam Blondi is saving her job by saving the GOP from the voters’ wrath. The game is to force a state (i.e. Republican) takeover of Fulton County voting (possible under SB 202). And you can’t separate the invasion of Atlanta voting offices from the Purge’n General Blondi’s demand that Minnesota hand over its voter rolls. The underlying purpose of Blondi’s seizure of Minnesota’s voter files is the restoration of two other racially poisonous vote suppression tricks. One is the return of the “Interstate Crosscheck” purge program and its sister, the purge of “aliens” from the rolls. Interstate Crosscheck cost nearly one million voters their registrations in 2016, key to Trump’s first election. Crosscheck was ruled illegal through a grassroots campaign led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sen. Bernie Sanders and litigation brought by PUSH, the NAACP and the ACLU based, I’m proud to say, on the evidence presented to the courts by the Palast Investigative Fund. But. now, Crosscheck is BAAAACK! Want to know about Crosscheck. Read my investigation for Rolling Stone. And there’s the canard of allegedly MILLIONS of alien voters swimming the Rio Grande just to vote for Democrats. When Florida used the ICE lists to purge 187,000 (!) voters from the rolls, mostly Hispanics, it turns out only ONE was an illegal alien: A Republican from Austria.But that’s a story for another day — and for our film, Vigilantes Inc. Grab some popcorn and save America. But that’s a story for another day — and for our film, Vigilantes Inc. Grab some popcorn and save America.Greg Palast’s film Vigilantes Inc., was produced by Martin Sheen and Maria Florio (Oscar, Best Documentary) and narrated by Rosario Dawson.ShareShareShareShareGreg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits and the book and documentary, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. His latest film is Vigilantes Inc.: America’s New Vote Suppression Hitmen… Support The Palast Investigative Fund with a tax-deductible donation and keep our work alive. Become a monthly Contributor. Forward to a friend | Subscribe to Palast’s Newsletter Share this with MASTODON | BLUESKY | SPOUTIBLE | PODBEANView email in browser Greg Palast · 3357 Cahuenga Blvd W, #13 · Los Angeles, United States 90068 · USA update your preferences or unsubscribe |