Getting out the vote where it matters most
The single most powerful lever afforded to citizens of a democracy is their right to vote. As citizens of the United States, our next opportunity to vote is just around the corner. Who and what issues we vote for will impact not only our immediate future but also that of generations to come.
It should follow that for a democracy like ours to be healthy, voting must be encouraged and made available equitably to as many adult citizens as possible. However, this is far from the case.
Who is eligible to vote in US elections varies from state to state. And this ground is constantly shifting — particularly in election years such as the current one—as some states try to expand voting rights while others to restrict them.
On the face of it, state voting laws may seem to apply equally to all citizens. Dig deeper, however, and it becomes clear that they disproportionately disenfranchise certain demographics. It would make sense, then, to make targeted efforts to counteract the effects of such biased laws and level the playing field a bit.
Focusing now on the US Presidential elections, it should come as no surprise to anyone that not all citizens’ votes matter. I’m talking, of course, about the Electoral College . Love it or hate it, it is what we have at the moment. And as a consequence, it is only a handful of swing states whose citizens will ultimately decide who become the next President and Vice President of the United States.
Let’s now add to the mix the notion of a bellwether state. In essence this is a state that seemingly must be won by a party for it to also win the Presidential election.
With 70 days to go to the 2020 US Presidential election, Ohio looks to be the closest swing state. And historically Ohio is known to be reliable bellwether state as well — in the 13 Presidential elections starting from 1964, the party that has won Ohio is the party whose candidate made it to the Oval office.
My wife, Tiffany, grew up in Norton, Ohio, a suburb of Akron. Her dad, brother, and some family still live in the area. We visit them once a year or so, with our latest visit being this past May (in which we drove from California with a mattress in the back of our SUV, trying to keep ourselves safe from COVID-19).
I’ve been working from home for the past six years, of which the past five have been at Elastic. Elastic is ridiculously supportive of its employees, showering us with perks such as up to 300 hours per year of vacation; 5 days per year of volunteer time; and, in keeping with the times, 14 days of COVID-19 leave plus 2 days per month of mandatory time off when almost the entire company shuts down so we can all collectively catch our breath.
Tiffany, too, has been working from home since March. And her employer has also been extremely supportive and thoughtful with their employee policies through the pandemic.
I think you might start to see where this is heading for us DINKWADs ;)
For the past couple of weeks, over breakfasts and dog walks, Tiffany and I have been putting all of the above pieces together. We find ourselves in fairly unique position, not just to help get the vote out this upcoming election, but also to do it in a place where the vote might just matter the most (for the US Presidential election).
And so, at this point, we are resolved: at some point in the coming weeks, we will be driving out to Ohio with the aim of helping on the ground to get out the vote. Quite likely we will stay until Election Day but that depends on how and when we can best help on the ground.
Ohio is a not a small state and it would be useful to know where exactly it would be most beneficial to focus our efforts. To that end, we did a bit of back-of-the-napkin analysis, combining 2016 Ohio election data with the 2010 Ohio census data, aggregated at the county level. We chose the county level as that felt like a reasonably-sized geographical area that the two of us could effectively cover over the course of a few weeks.
Based on our analysis, our initial prioritized short list of counties is: Montgomery, Summit, Lorain, Butler, Stark, Trumbull, Warren, and Wood. This is still quite a lot of ground to cover so we will most likely shorten the list even further in the coming days. For that our next step will be reaching out to organizations in these areas who are already working to help get out the vote, focusing in particular on Black and Hispanic citizens. Once we have enough information from these organizations on how best we could help, we will make our travel plans and then depart for Ohio. We will be there as long as we can be of help, likely through Election Day.
