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We are pausing all election-related activities -- postcarding, texting, phonebanking, trainings -- for a week. Our Volunteer Center will also be closed, with no drop-in hours. This decision was difficult to make but new guidelines and restrictions from Gov. Gavin Newsom issued yesterday made it clear that the changes we’ve been making are not enough. Here were our considerations as we made this decision:
Things are changing daily, even hourly, and we are not able to keep up. We need time to develop new protocols and ways of working.
Elections themselves may be changing. For example, in order to continue to provide accurate information to voters, one phonebank campaign needed to change its script four times yesterday. We need some time to wait for state and federal leaders to figure out new election protocols that may affect our messages to voters.
As organizations committed deeply to social justice, we need to be leaders on this issue. The top priority for our leaders and our volunteers is to stay home and not spread the Coronavirus through our community. We are thinking today of our older neighbors, of workers who have lost their jobs or their income, our low-income friends who can’t afford to stock up on food or medicine, the many in our nation who don’t have health insurance, as well as so many others.
The leadership teams of Sister District CA-3 and Indivisible Yolo will meet online at week’s end to discuss what activities to resume and how. We will communicate with you through both email and social media as soon as we have that information. Please be patient with us as we navigate a very different world. And, now some practical matters:
POSTCARDS: If you have picked up postcard packets, you can still write them if you are able. You can still drop them off in our mail slot or, if you are a member of a vulnerable group, hold on to them until we can arrange a different method that doesn’t involve you traveling to the Center. If you’d like to keep writing on your own, consider signing up for Postcards to Voters.
TEXTING: If you are a trained texter, you can keep texting! Our text trainings, however, are canceled this week.
PHONEBANKING: If you are a trained phonebanker and there are applicable campaigns you can call from home, feel free! But our virtual phonebanks and phonebank trainings are canceled this week.
VOTER REGISTRATION: Our training and practice sessions are canceled this week, along with any face to face voter registration trips or canvassing trips.
Please stay safe and follow the latest guidelines. We will all be thinking about you in the week ahead. Sister District CA-3 & Indivisible Yolo Leadership Teams