NEWS FROM THE COCONINO COUNTY DEMOCRATS
September 6, 2024
In this edition: Plan to attend our monthly meeting as we prepare for ballot drop and the start of early voting! Now is the time to sign up for voter protection work: observing at the polls, the Recorder’s Office, or the Elections Center. Hear our Chair’s description of her time at the Democratic National Convention as a volunteer. We continue to reach out to voters, serve our community at the Flagstaff Family Food Center, and more in our work to defend democracy – join us!
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82637584049?pwd=2nmeg5Rhm2IC0i7eKcRMha1ukLg6r1.1
Meeting ID: 826 3758 4049
Passcode: 167779
Be Part of Protecting This Election!
One of the most powerful and important contributions you can make in the upcoming election is also one of the easiest: simply watching as voters, poll workers, and election officials carry out their roles. Your careful observation and your understanding of the process will be the antidote to any post-election claims of fraud or corruption.
Serving as a poll observer is the front line of voter protection. You check whether the doors are open and ballots are available when the polls are due to open at 6 am. You watch how voters are greeted, their identification checked, and their ballots handled throughout the day. And you see whether everyone waiting in line at 7 pm, when the polls close, is allowed to vote. In the unlikely event of any problems (for example, long lines, lack of ballots, voter harassment), you can report through an on-line system to a crew from the Arizona Democratic Party who work with election officials to correct the situation.
Recruitment of poll observers is now starting for the General Election. First step — you must sign up on the Arizona Democratic Party volunteer interest form:
Please sign up now to start receiving all the background info.
Next, sign up for one of the on-line trainings. These are excellent preparation – and they also provide you with a wonderful reference manual for your use if any questions arise while you are observing. Finally – the training introduces you to the on-line reporting tool (called LBJ) that is available to you on Election Day.
We also are organizing observers for the Recorder’s Office, where early ballots have envelope signatures verified, and the Elections Center, where ballots are counted or tabulated. Early voting begins October 9, and ballot opening and tabulation will begin shortly after that! So if you are interested in taking a shift or two at the Recorder’s Office in downtown Flagstaff, or at the Elections Center in Flagstaff, instead of or in addition to an Election Day assignment at a polling place, please let laura.huenneke@gmail.com know ASAP and we will get you an assignment.
It takes a village to cover all the polling places in our huge County. And because early ballots will be coming in and being counted throughout October and beyond, there will be many chances to watch and learn about these crucial processes. Thanks for your willingness to help protect our voters and our election!
Thanks for joining us – we are all in this together, and together we will win!
Join Our Friends from the Coordinated Campaign’s
Flagstaff Field Office
Collin Gunn, Flagstaff Field Organizer, invites us all to join the enthusiastic crowd in the office for the televised Presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump! Learn more and register at this link: https://mobilize.us/s/2y9RXc
You are also invited to join our former Congresswoman Karan English for canvassing on Saturday, and other crucial outreach activities over the next couple of weeks. Go to mobilize.us and type “Flagstaff” in the top search bar – you’ll see many fun and effective actions to join.
It’s Debate Time
Arizona Clean Elections sponsors debates every election season. Be sure to tune in to these important debates featuring candidates and issues that will be on your ballot in November. Debate schedules, viewing instructions and an opportunity to submit questions can be found at https://www.azcleanelections.gov/debate-information.
Here are a few debates that you should plan to watch.
September 3, 6 pm. Corporation Commissioner Debate. All six candidates who will be on your ballot have agreed to participate. Tune in to support Democrats Ylena Aguilar, Jonathan Hill, and Joshua Polachek. Also remember – you can and you SHOULD vote for all three on your ballot.
September 5, 6 pm. CD2 Debate. Eli Crane and Jonathan Nez. Eli Crane has not agreed to participate, but tune in anyway to support Nez. Crane also did not show up for the debate last month sponsored by Arizona PBS.
October 9, 6 pm. U.S. Senate Debate. Kari Lake and Ruben Gallego. Both candidates are confirmed and it should be a lively debate.
Issues Debates are scheduled for the following dates, all at 6 pm.
September 19 – Immigration
September 26 – Primary Election
October 1 – Abortion
Unfortunately it is too late for advance notice of the Coconino County Recorder Debate that was held on August 27 between Aubrey Sonderegger and Bob Thorpe. But you can watch it at the Arizona Clean Elections link above; just look for the link to Debate Archives. You can also find a link to the LD7 Primary debate that was held in July, and all other Clean Elections debates.
Help Get Our Ballot Guide into Voters’ Hands
The single largest investment of money and time for campaign communications each cycle is our Ballot Guide (sometimes called the “sample ballot” in the past). This fall’s edition will be even more crucial than usual, given the lengthy ballot and numerous initiatives to be decided. We need a small army of volunteers to help us prepare and stuff the envelopes, as we plan to mail more than 30,000 of these guides to Democrats and Dem-leaning Independents throughout Coconino County.
The link below takes you to our signup sheet for office volunteers (who help with all kinds of work, from writing postcards to doing data entry). Scroll down and you will see shifts listed for days in September for envelope prep and envelope stuffing. This is a big project – from running names and addresses for mailing labels, to designing and printing the actual guide, to writing and duplicating the cover letter. And every detail is being carefully planned, like the encouraging message on the front of the envelope and the wording of recommendations on ballot initiatives. In the end, though, we need to put address labels on envelopes and stuff the guides into those 30,000 envelopes. Please consider signing up for a shift or two in our biggest push of the year!
Kaibab Lake Picnic / Meet & Greet
Sunday, September 8, 11:30 am – 2:30 pm
Join LD7 Dems and Coconino / LD6 Dems at Kaibab Lake on Sunday, September 8, for a potluck picnic and candidate meet & greet. Suggested Donation: $7 for LD7. Mobilize Sign-Up.
Learn and Share More about Project 2025!
Democrats of the Red Rocks (DORR) presented a discussion with Andra Watkins, author of the Substack “How Project 2025 Will Ruin YOUR Life”. Andra describes herself as a “Survivor of Christian Nationalism” which makes her uniquely qualified to detect the nuances and religious “dog whistles” that most readers miss. We’ll examine the radical right’s nefarious plan to subjugate women, outlaw birth control and dismantle the federal government and its most crucial programs. Andra explained Trump’s Project 2025 and the rise of Christian Nationalism, and answered many of our questions.
Andra is a New York Times bestselling author. She publishes her Project 2025 column several times a week in digestible pieces and is a nationally recognized expert on the topic.
The program was recorded and is now available on DORR’s YouTube channel.
What You Need to Know About Project 2025
Just click the link and sit back and enjoy the program. And while you’re there, please consider subscribing to DORR’s YouTube channel and you will be notified when new content is made available.
Join Our Volunteer and PC Group
Did you know we have a Facebook group page where we offer many chances for action, as well as provocative background reading and thoughtful discussion? It’s private and “hidden,” meaning that only members can read and post, and non-members can’t see it at all. We would love to have YOU be part of it!
To check to see if you are already a member, log into Facebook and use the search icon in the top left to search for “Coconino Democratic PC’s” – if you see the page, you are a member.
To join, follow these two steps:
- First, go to our public Facebook page (Coconino County Democratic Party) and make sure you are following our page.
- Then, message Laura Huenneke through Facebook (or email her at laura.huenneke@gmail.com) and let her know your Facebook profile name – she will add you to the group.
Even if you abhor the Facebook algorithms, or don’t want to enrich Mark Zuckerberg, you will find our group a great source of inspiration and of how-to information!
Join Us in Our Key Outreach and Voter Education Work This Summer
Flagstaff’s community calendar of fantastic festivals and celebrations is in full swing, and the Coconino County Democrats are fully engaged. We’d love to have your help. We are still serving dinner at the Flagstaff Family Food Center on the first Thursday of each month, too. Have you tried our “one-stop-shop” way of signing up to get involved? Keep reading for the link and see all the opportunities to contribute.
Volunteer Signup Sheet
As our outreach and community activities heat up with the summer and the campaign season, we are using a convenient tool for signing up. This link below takes you to a spreadsheet where you can learn about all of our events and sign up for those you’d like to help with. The tabs at the bottom are by month; click on AUGUST if you’d like to see what we have going that month, for example. Each sheet then presents all of the events for that month, from serving dinner at the Flagstaff Family Food Center, to tabling at one of our summer festivals, to talking to voters at the Sunday markets. Put your name and contact information into the sheet where you’d like to help; no need to email or call or click Submit, because the sheet will be updated and your information will be visible to the organizer as soon as you sign up. Thanks for being part of the fun and the great work we are doing this election year!
Calendar of Events
To share an upcoming event in our bi-monthly newsletter or the monthly events calendar on our website, please email us the details by Friday prior to each newsletter.
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Paid for by the Coconino County Democratic Party.
Donations are political contributions and not tax-deductible.