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Phase 5 of Hope Springs from Field GOTV Plan: Ballot Curing [1]

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Date: 2022-10-20

Hope Springs from Field PAC’s GOTV plan is an interconnected and related effort to drive and increase voter turnout for the midterms, including making every effort to ensure that our voter’s votes count. There are basically six phases to this Get-Out-the-Vote plan for 2022. Phase One was organizing New Voter Postcards and followup communications with New Voters to the 15,737 new Voters we registered at the doors since June 2021 in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Phase 2 of Hope Springs’ GOTV effort was collating the 1,373 Incident Reports we collected at the doors, combining them with other databases of Election Day Intimidation and Suppression, analyzing the data and combining that with other indicators of possible election interference this year. Phase 3 has been the recruiting of attorneys willing to serve as floating legal eagles on Election Day and familiarizing them with the data we’ve collected from canvassing, prior incidences & reports as well as administrative action taken in the past.

Phase Four has been organizing, training and activating the mentors who we have recruited to interact with the 15,737 new Voters we registered in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. This is in keeping with the (2008) Obama mandate that “If You Register Them, You Are Responsible” for getting them to the polls. Curing Signatures is the fifth phase of Hope Springs from Field’s GOTV plan and we will work through the last and final moment that we can help voters in Senate Swing States to make sure their vote counts.

In 2020, for instance, more than 560,000 ballots were rejected because of apparent voter signature mismatches (as perceived by their elections office). States that have a ballot curing process, though, have significantly lower rates of rejected mail ballots. But this doesn’t happen by magic. We have to do everything we can to make sure that their votes are accepted and counted.

Ballots are rejected largely because of a perceived signature mismatch. This heavily affects voters at the margins — minorities, young people, people with disabilities, trans and gender-nonconforming people, women, people for whom English is a second language, and military personnel. Women who change their name upon marriage or divorce, are also often affected (as we discovered in our ballot curing efforts during the Georgia Senate runoff in 2021).

When Hope Springs from Field started canvassing back in June 2021, we always knew that the 2022 Midterms would end with Ballot Curing. Understand this is the reason why we invested in mobile scanners/printers for use with voter registration, absentee (VBM) ballots and ballot curing. Mobile printers allow voters to bring their acceptable identification to the volunteer’s car, scan the ID themselves and take the copy back to to include with their absentee ballot or ballot curing form. They do the scanning and printer so that they know that their "numbers" are secure. We’ve known that we needed to have these assets on the ground, ready to go when the time came.

That time is now.

Curing ballots is perhaps an underappreciated process for campaigns and volunteers. In essence, it is only a factor when races are unbelievably close. But that may very well be the case in 2022. Ballotpedia explains the process this way:

Absentee/mail-in ballots must meet a variety of state requirements to be verified and counted. All 50 states require voters to provide valid signatures on their absentee/mail-in ballot return documents. In the event of a missing signature or a discrepancy in signature matching, 24 states require officials to notify voters and allow voters to correct signature errors through a process called ballot curing. Ballot curing is a two-part process that involves notification and correction. States that do not have a ballot curing process do not count ballots with missing or mismatched signatures.

Here’s the thing. Elections Administrators notify and wait for voters to follow through. Campaigns engage is something more again to nagging. Elections Administrators may notify through one-off phones calls or a single letter. But we will use every tactic to make sure that voters are aware that their signatures need to be “cured:” emails, robocalls, live calls, texts and knocking on doors. Repeated efforts to connect, notify and resolve.

While most of our spring and summer volunteers have moved on to the candidate’s campaigns or the coordinated campaigns, we did have volunteers who were really devoted to ensuring that every voter’s ballot got counted. These volunteers made it clear early on they were interested in this specific phase of our GOTV plan. They are now being mobilized.

Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors in a grassroots-led effort to prepare the Electoral Battleground in what has been called the First Round of a traditional Five Round Canvass. We are taking those efforts to the doors of the communities most effected (the intended targets or victims) of these new voter suppression laws.

Obviously, we rely on grassroots support, so if you support field/grassroots organizing, voter registration (and follow-up) and our efforts to protect our voters, we would certainly appreciate your support:

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ballotcures

Hope Springs from Field PAC understands that repeated voter interactions are critical. We are returning to the old school basics: repeated contacts, repeated efforts to remind them of protocols, meeting them were they are. Mentoring those who need it (like first time and newly registered voters). Reminding, reminding, reminding, and then chasing down those voters whose ballots need to be cured.

While we are focused on these five, critically important, Senate Swing States, there are additional states that have provisions for ballot curing. Every state is different, of course, as you can see from the spreadsheet image above.

Many states allow you to track your ballot with an online portal that shows you when your ballot is received and then processed. Some of them even let you know if your ballot is rejected. They may even give a reason why.

This information is also available on VAN. And VAN allows us to not only track those voters who need to have their ballots cured, but also to track how many times we have reached out to those who need to have their ballots cured.

In 2021, Hope Springs volunteers cured over 200 ballots. It was in that effort that we learned about the need for mobile printers. But it was through the process of helping (mostly minority) Georgians get free photo Voter IDs that we realized that there were conservative orgs and Republican volunteers determined to challenge as many voters as possible on the most picayune issues, seeking to force voters to document those issues before their votes could be accepted and counted.

The Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights thinks this disproportionately effects People of Color. I would argue that this is so because Republican and conservative groups are challenging voters in predominately Democratic areas, whereas Democrats don’t do the same. We believe U.S. citizens who are registered should have a right to vote.

But, as a result, Democratic campaigns can no longer functionally end on election day, but must anticipate continuation at least until the period for ballot curing is over. Activists must start to take that into account, as well. The election won’t be over until (Democratic) ballots are cured!

If you are able to support our efforts to mobilize these difficult, brand new voters to cast their ballots in November, especially in minority communities, expanding the electorate, or just believe in grassroots efforts to increase voter participation and election protection, please donate:

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ballotcures

Thank you for your support. This work depends on you!

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/20/2128549/-Ballot-Curing

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