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Civic Engagement Action Team Concludes a Successful Year

12/07/2020 11:04:36 PM

Dec7

by Marcia Vandercook

Over 50 TBE members participated in our 2020 Civic Engagement Action Team, working to promote nonpartisan voter registration and education. We were pleased to have a share in making history: there was record-breaking turnout both nationally and in Wisconsin, and more Americans voted in this election than in any in the last century.

The TBE team was part of the national Reform Movement’s “Every Voice, Every Vote” campaign, working all year to ensure that people who are often disenfranchised could make their voices heard. The Reform campaign reached more than 560,000 voters, with a special focus on outreach to “low-propensity” voters in communities of color. It provided calls, texts, and postcards on successful state ballot measures: expanding Medicaid in Missouri and Oklahoma, defeating an abortion ban in Colorado, and fighting felon disenfranchisement in California. At Temple Beth El, 40 members wrote 1,800 postcards to encourage low-propensity voters in North Carolina, Texas, and Georgia to overcome their state’s voter suppression efforts and vote. Even now, members are writing postcards to encourage voters in Georgia to register and vote in their senatorial runoff election.

Closer to home, we joined forces with the Wisconsin Interfaith Voter Engagement Campaign, headed by Rabbi Bonnie Margulis of Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice and Dr. Peter Bakken of the Wisconsin Council of Churches. Our members contributed hundreds of hours through this campaign to fight voter suppression and make sure every citizen was able to vote and vote safely.

Because voter registration in Wisconsin is more complicated than it needs to be, TBE members attended hours of training and presentations on how to combat voter suppression measures. Some members offered socially distanced voter registration at food pantries and colleges, while others shifted to staffing voter hotlines and distributing written information. We helped the Madison City Clerk by preparing a record number of absentee ballots, assisting with early voting, accepting absentee ballots at Democracy in the Park, and serving as poll workers in four elections. This was a successful and satisfying effort for the TBE team. We thank everyone who participated, and everyone who voted.

In 2021, the Wisconsin Interfaith Voter Engagement Project will continue its work to encourage voter engagement, fight voter suppression, and hold elected officials accountable. To stay up to date on this work, sign up for their mailing list. 

May 1, 2025 3 Iyar 5785