Participate in UU the Vote!

Jamie Evanini, Faith Action Ministry

The Faith Action Ministry invites you to participate in our 2020 UU the Vote activities, which are now underway! After a pause and reset due to the pandemic, we have focused our efforts on postcard and letter writing related to the Census, voter registration, and voter participation. (There may be opportunities to textbank or phonebank later in the year, especially in the final weeks of October…TBD!)

UU the Vote is a project of the Unitarian Universalist Association, designed to get UU congregations around the country involved in non-partisan efforts to register more voters, fight voter suppression, increase voter turnout, and educate voters about ballot initiatives in their state. So many of our eight UU principles are reflected in this work, and the times we are in call us to fight for these principles like never before.

After our kick-off Postcard Writing Zoom Party in April, 30+ volunteers have now completed our first project of writing 1,000 postcards to support the Mercer County Census count in traditionally hard-to-count Trenton!

This successful debut was quickly followed by the launch of postcard writing for Reclaim Our Vote, a non-partisan initiative of the Center for Common Ground that works with organizations like the NAACP, Black Voters Matter, and Mi Familia Vota to register and turn-out voters of color in Southern states with a long (and recent) history of voter suppression. Our postcards alert voters that they may have been purged from the voter rolls, and tell them how they can confirm their registration status.

Our work continues with a second Zoom Writing Party on May 23 to introduce our third project, writing letters for Vote Forward’s Big Send campaign, which seeks to mail letters to 10 million voters in swing states right before Election Day to encourage them to vote! These pre-printed letters will go to traditionally under-represented voters; volunteers will add a hand-written message to each letter, sharing why they vote in every election.

In addition to our writing activities, the Faith Action Ministry will soon launch our UUCWC CensUUs Initiative! Let’s make sure that we all submit our Census forms to help get an accurate count! We need volunteers to call, text or email 5-10 other UUCWC members, urging them to complete their Census form and to promise to contact 4 non-UUCWC contacts to do the same. Now more than ever we need to stay connected. This is an opportunity to reach out to our community and to ensure the Census matters.

There are several ways you can be a part of UUCWC’s UU the Vote work this year. You can:

  • Write postcards and letters
  • Donate supplies like stamps (both 35 cent and 55 cent stamps are needed), Avery 5160 labels, and #10 envelopes
  • Help us print out address lists, labels, and pre-printed letters
  • Deliver writing supplies to fellow volunteers
  • Volunteer to text or make phone calls as part of the UUCWC CensUUs Initiative

Please contact Jamie for more info about writing postcards and letters, donating office supplies, or delivering writing supplies to volunteers . Please contact Michele Ruopp for more info on our CensUUs initiative.