wrangletangle:

To my wonderful US followers on this lovely November 6: Please breathe.

Go vote, of course, if you have the right and are registered. (Some states allow same-day registration. Google your heart out.)

Ignore the polls. They’re often wrong. Go vote.

Most important fights are local. Vote all the way down your ticket. I
found a nasty surprise in one of our judicial races. I also found some
really thoughtful local initiatives. Ballotpedia’s got your back.

Electoral reform comes from state
legislatures. Vote your state rep, your state senator (if up for
election), and your governor (if up for election). Vote your friggin’
county clerk, the person who often makes decisions about polling
stations. That’s a key position.

After you vote? Breathe. I strongly recommend not tuning in to the results in some kind of awful play-by-play. Remember 2016? The stress isn’t good for you, regardless of the outcome. We all need to be functional for the next stage, whatever that is.

Manage your expectations. The House would be nice, but it’s not a guarantee of anything. Don’t hang all your hopes on that number or expect impeachment to follow. State legislatures and governor’s races are key. We won’t get all of them, but an improvement in that area will make a big difference in the fight against gerrymandering in 2020.

Most of all, recognize that this is not the boss battle. This is an important moment, and we need to show up to level up. It will make a difference in how hard the next two years will be, and how many people will be hurt in that time. But win or lose, we still have a long way to go. That will still be true in 2020.

I voted for the first time when I was 19 years old, alone in a dorm room two thousand miles from home, before google existed, with a newspaper laid out in front of me. (Thanks, mom!) I had no idea what I was doing, but I did it anyway. It never occurred to me then that people’s right to vote would be as badly eroded as it is now – that poll taxes, restrictive paperwork laws, closing polling places, and other tactics would once again become the norm in my nation. I thought we were beyond that. We’re not.

This makes it all the more essential that we show up today, and show up for local races. And that after we show up, we keep organizing for electoral reform. The majority of people in this country want everyone to have equal rights and fair treatment under the law. The majority of us want to take care of each other. That majority can only speak if those of us who still have our voting rights exercise them.

But for today, just vote and breathe. One step at a time. We will get there.