This is a revision of something I posted in the Fourth Wave Women subreddit a couple months ago. It’s even more important now.
Do you vote in off-year primary elections for offices like state legislator and attorney general? Candidates in one of the primary elections for Michigan attorney general criticized the Supreme Court decision that prevented states from banning the sale of contraceptives (1). A woman in Texas was charged with murder for a self-induced abortion (2). Most of the legislators who pass laws that allow charges like that are selected in the primary, not the general, election. It’s incredibly important that pro-women forces get as politically skilled and organized at the local level as anti-women forces.
The primary election of the party most likely to win the elections for your state legislators is where you can influence how extreme they'll be. They're the ones who decide on crazy policies like the Texas anti-choice law and all the "trigger laws" taking effect now. Right now, extremists turn out in these obscure elections in vastly higher numbers than more moderate voters. That forces politicians who want to get nominated to support extreme positions.
Laws will be passed soon restricting women’s right to travel to states where abortion is legal. How aggressively they’ll be enforced where you live will be heavily influenced by the politicians who control local law enforcement. That means you need to read up on and vote in elections for city council, sheriff, district attorney and district court judges.
If you live in an area where there’s no hope the party you like can win, your job is to try make the other party less extreme. As soon as filing to run has closed, figure out which of that party’s candidates is the most reasonable. Then organize bunch of your friends to volunteer on that candidate's campaign and donate to it. So few people vote in primaries, politicians pay a lot of attention to the positions of primary voters. A small number of votes are far more likely to swing a primary than a general election. Let the candidate know there are a lot of people supporting moderate positions. Talk up the campaign and get as many people as you can to turn out to support it in the primary.
Of course, in the general election, you still vote for the party you really like. Hopefully, though, your efforts in the primary will have helped get a more reasonable candidate running on the other side.
Conservatives have dominated primaries and off-year elections for many years. They're very close to taking over the country because of it. Pro-women voters need to be as strategic and as organized as our opponents. We have to start turning out in the same numbers as they do very early in the candidate selection process.
(2) https://apnews.com/article/health-mexico-texas-arrests-891e20eb228a056870f0767d22086dae
This is the way.
Primaries and off-year elections are so important.
All the races from governor down to school board are important.
I hope to see more young women voting and participating in civic society - campaigns, NOW, League of Women Voters, unions, etc.
Love this!! Even the coroner is important because those were the people deciding if a covid death was a covid death on the death cert, which influenced the death count and kept people from getting funeral benefits if they were covid deniers.
I have been saying I plan to vote for the least awful republican in the primary. F it, the DNC is gonna nominate who they want to nominate so I want a voice in choosing who they compete with.