Newsletter August 27, 2026, #2

Election Protection Mobilization

Indivisible is working with other organizations in an Election Protection Mobilization strategy to help us cast our votes as safely as possible and protect election integrity. I will be sharing the actions in this plan so that you can participate in this key element of democracy for the coming elections.

In the first training, we learned that the Election Protection Mobilization is a full-range strategy where election-protection organizations throughout the country will be working with grassroots organizations that organize and mobilize people to prevent violations, address illegal interference during the voting process and protect the integrity of the elections after we vote.

This means that there are three phases for the mobilization:

1. Pre-voting
2. During voting
3. After voting

In this first training we went through the Pre-voting phase, which is the most straight-forward and the one where you have the most individual and group control.

For each action we can take, there are three ways to go about it, so that everyone has some way to participate in the action, according to our capacity and conditions. These three ways are:

1. Do it: Take action by yourself immediately. Totally under your control.
2. Share it: Spread the words to others. Friends. Family. Peers. Communities. Fields of interest. Wherever you can spread the word, do that.
3. Flex it: Expand and maximize this action to broader communities. This is usually done in community or coalition. As part of a local community group, you can organize events, for example. Also, those with communication outlets can do this more easily. Artists, Educators and others with special skills can only use their talents to amplify the action.

OK, so that’s the structure. But here’s the thing:

This mobilization is only a plan until you make it happen.

As a plan, it articulates a strategy. Good. But it will not work unless each of us gets engaged and do their part. I will be clear on what actions to take and why and how it all works together. Your part is to DO it. OK? Let’s go.

Effectively Communicating the Urgency to Vote and Protect Our Elections

Anat Shenker-Osorio is an American political strategist and messaging consultant. She is the Principal and Founder of ASO Communications, author of Don’t Buy It: The Trouble with Talking Nonsense About the Economy, and the host of the Words to Win By podcast.

Anat gave Indivisible members an intensive training on how to mobilize people for this Election Protection Mobilization. She explained what has failed in the democratic message and how to inform and activate voters to show up and protect our elections.

Here are the key take-away points I got.

There will be elections.  If people are skeptic about there being elections this year, it’s important to let them know that there WILL be elections. Skepticism disenfranchises people. Here’s the information they need to have.

Right now we are not yet under full fascist rule. We are in a phase called Competitive Authoritarianism. At that phase, the wanna-be-authoritarian does not yet control elections, so the regime cannot cancel them. The states still have control of elections. So what the regime does—what it can do—is to sabotage elections.

After this is clarified, quickly shift the focus to why we need to have a massive show-up at our elections and how to protect them. To do this, proceed with the tasks below.

Our Tasks:

1. Activate the choir.
2. Connect problems to consequences to activate voters.
3. Turn emotions into action.

Let’s examine these tasks.

1. Activate the Choir

People are confused with misinformation, especially since this regime’s tactic is to repeat lies until they are perceived as facts. Confused people do not take action. That’s their intention.

What to do?

1. Repeat the truth. Be clear. Be direct. Be supportive. Repeat it as often as necessary and ask those who understand to do the same. We are fighting disinformation. But we are also fighting the absence of media sources to inform us. So We, the People must do the job. We must inform each other and clarify misinformation, confusion or obfuscation.
2. Yes, there will be vote because we are fighting a fascist coup and cannot afford to let them steal our vote. Right now the vote is not in their hands. It is in the hands of our state officials, who mainly are protecting it. We must become watchdogs and supporters of this protections.
3. Therefore, you must inform and activate people. You inform them that there is anti-voter attack underway. There are voter suppression attacks by this regime. And every single voter is standing against this, becoming a mobilization force by making sure they can and do vote and then sharing what they know with others and supporting them to vote. This is a cross-party, unified massive mobilization to defend our vote against the fascist coup.

2. Connect problems to consequences to activate voters

Once you help people get clear on what is going on and the reason for our massive mobilization, then turn their concerns into an activation.

A recent survey showed that:

• 40% of voters had heard the lie that there was voter fraud by illegal immigrants repeatedly. It was tied to the consequence that this voter fraud would mess up our elections. As a result, they believed that the problem with elections was voter fraud.
• Only 4% of voters in that survey were aware that the problem we are having is with voter suppression because this regime is doing everything they can to keep people from voting. Only that small percentage of people understood that voter suppression was the real threat to our votes—not voter fraud.

How could this be happening with all the videos, articles and podcast denouncing voter suppression?

It happens because the regime keeps drilling that the problem is voter fraud, and then always follows it by saying that this is destroying the integrity of our elections and we must stop it. They connect voter fraud to a consequence that the voter can understand.

In the absence of a mainstream media informing the public, that repeated lie is what is being absorbed.

On the other hand, the democratic community only mentions the problem of voter suppression and may go into the stats. However, they believe that once these numbers are clear, everyone understands the results.

And that is false. Many people are not clear on how voter suppression affects the outcomes of elections, especially at this moments, when democracy is at stake. We must name the consequences of voter suppression. We must be clear and explicit on how they wreck elections.

What to do?

1. Make the actions of sabotage clear and defined. There is no voter fraud. Many bipartisan and third party studies and investigations have been conducted and the instances where illegal immigrants vote are 1% or less. There is no problem there and the regimen is inventing a problem to fit their agenda of interfering with elections.

But there is massive voter suppression efforts going on by the regime and this alters the election results. Be specific on the means, results and consequences to us.

For example:

Means:

Voter roll purges, redistricting, increasing requirements, militarizing the polls, terrorizing poll workers and prohibiting mail-in voting, trying to get less people voting, the purge of votes of people of color and other minorities, and many other tactics they are constantly trying.

Consequences:

• If elections are not counted correctly, this leads to false results. For example, the regimen can destroy, purge or exclude ballots where voters vote against them and this would lead to giving them a win against all our votes, even when in fact, a majority voted against them.
• If they interfere with the counting, the ballots or the accessibility, then the integrity of the elections will be questioned, and that is a path to then cancelling them altogether.
• If they militarize the voting polls, fear can keep people out and interfere with the counting of the results.
• They can put pressure so that the final vote and decision in congress is affected or cannot proceed; which would render our votes useless.
• Redistricting, the SAVE acts and other discriminating measures can lead to depriving entire groups of citizens like Latinos, African-American, women, disabled and transpeople. When you exclude these groups, the election results do not serve the entire population and will lead to results and policies that will increase discrimination and decrease democracy.
• Eventually all these acts will lead to render elections useless and to destroy democracy.
• So we cannot allow voter suppression to ruin our elections or we won’t have any voice in our governance at all.

When people see that their community can be disenfranchised, democracy can be dismantled, they can disregard our voice and will and can destroy our democracy, these are clear, definitive outcomes that they not only understand, but will not accept. That’s when people take action.

2. Make what we can do clear and defined. Make it clear how these actions we are taking are key to democracy. We need to connect the problem with the consequence and our solution with a positive outcome.

“They are doing this (Keeping millions of people from voting) and the consequences are this (the results are skewed, they don’t count because so many could not get to vote, so election integrity is now thrown out; and once this happens, elections can easily be abolished or fake elections are put in place and the regimen becomes a dictator where our voices are not heard. We have no say.)"

“That’s why we are doing this (Showing up to vote massively to protect our democracy and stop this fascist coup and also creating an Election Protection Mobilization where millions of citizens are watching up for any shenanigans and activating a Rapid Response to stop them). That way we stay on top of the voting process, from the pre-voting phases all the way to the vote counting and congress ratification. (And that helps restrain this out of control regimen from destroying our elections integrity and using that to get rid of elections all together and enthrone themselves as a dictatorship.)”

It’s not that people don’t care about values and moral issues. But at a moment of fear and confusion, we need clarity and tangible consequences that mobilize us because what we will lose is clear and what is at stake is high and visceral. This is what allows us to overcome fear and obstacles to take action.

The chart of this looks like this:

• Moral Goal= Too abstract= No activation
• Tangible Action= Clear and definite= Activation
• Consequences= Clear results= Activating
• Motivation= Emotional response=”We will fight this!”
• Call to action= clear and doable= Activation

Also when people understand the strategy and know we are taking these actions together, as a nation—there is a powerful sense of belonging, People Power and unity that propels them to action.

3. Turn emotions into action

Right now people are feeling fear, anger and outrage. (After we clear the confusion or overwhelm. That needs to be addressed first). To help them mobilize, we need to help them alchemize these emotions into actions.

Anat said that there was a new word that people were coming up to describe this.

Ragency= rage + agency.

I love it!

So let’s turn fear, anger or outrage into Ragency.

Let’s come up with ways that we can do this with our language, by:

• Clearing the path to the truth of the real problem.
• Connecting the real problem to consequences that we do not want.
• Helping people take action to avoid those consequences.

One call to action that has been very successful in doing the later is:

“Your vote is your whistle. Sound it!”

It is clear what your tool is and what to do with it. At a time when we are using whistles to fight ICE and the whistle has come to represent people’s victory and agency, then this is understood at a visceral level.

I invite you to communicate using this framework in ways that are real and authentic to you and that help people take focused action quickly.

I’ll keep you in touch as more strategies come up for during vote and after vote phases.

Call to Action:

1. Check your registration once a month and share this with your circle.
2. Set up your calendar to vote early and make a group to do it.
3. Volunteer locally. Use this tool: org
4. Come up with your way to engage people in voting that makes the truth clear, the problem tangible, the consequences intolerable and that turns emotional reactivity into ragengy!

That’s all for now.

In Unity and Soulful Joy,

Maria Mar