Democrats roll out enhanced online voting portal to get out all the votes
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Democrats, as usual, want to make sure that every eligible person is registered and able to vote in November’s general election, and they’ve beefed up their online tool, called I Will Vote, to make that simpler and safer for voters around the country. The site is also available in Spanish.
“The stakes for our country have never been higher, and we’re making sure Americans have all the information they need in order to make their plan to vote and send Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the White House,” Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez said in a statement released Monday, announcing the expanded portal. You can select your state, then register, check your registration status, and obtain all the information you need for your state to either vote by mail or vote in person. That’s part of a larger digital get-out-the-vote effort which includes texting and calling potential voters rather than in-person canvassing, which has largely stopped because of the pandemic.
Republicans, too, are trying to get their voters to vote by mail. They’re having a more difficult time of it, though, because their standard-bearer Donald Trump insists on spouting disinformation and lies about the safety of vote-by-mail, suggesting that it will cause him to lose the election. They have also ramped up in-person GOTV, since they’ve also, as a political party, abandoned belief in the seriousness of coronavirus.
The more robust new Democratic online portal instructs would-be voters of their options for registering, online and in person, and how to request absentee ballots in their home state. It facilitates requesting your ballot online where it’s possible, or getting that absentee ballot application sent by mail, with a postage-paid return envelope to the voter’s local elections office provided. In states where it is allowed, the site even will allow voters to provide signatures online to be used to verify signatures on absentee ballots. The Democrats are also spending more time on phone banking to walk voters through the process of registering, requesting absentee ballots, and making a voting plan.
The Biden campaign has also developed a robust election protection program, chock-full of high-powered lawyers to fight voter suppression before and on Election Day, and to combat what will be a vicious Trump effort to contest the election results when he loses.