Georgia just passed a law to make it harder to vote.  Florida’s looking at passing similar law(s).  In this morning’s news, I see that Texas is looking at ways to restrict voter access.

These states are not alone.  In a recent piece from Axios, it states:

“Three states at the tip of the spear are Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Georgia — states critical to Trump’s loss in November and Democrats’ takeover of the U.S. Senate last month. According to the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, Arizona leads the pack with 19 proposals, followed by Pennsylvania with 14 and Georgia with 11.”

Here’s another great article on CNN that talks about voter suppression. It includes a graphic showing different state’s efforts towards voter suppression.  At the time the article was written, 45 states have bills going through their state legislatures with both Arizona and Georgia each having 22 bills in play.  Mississippi, Illinois, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island have 15 or more bills working their way through their state legislatures.  Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Minnesota, Alabama, and South Carolina have 10+ bills.  And California has two bills:

• CA SB 511 has to do with purges and was introduced by Senator Bates from Laguna Nigel (Orange County).
• CA SB 597 has to do with absentee voting and was introduced by Senator Grove from Bakersfield.

The day after Georgia passed their law, a growing number of companies spoke up about how wrong it was.  It would have been more impressive if they had spoken up before Georgia passed that bill.  It’s much easier to stop these bills before they pass than to get rid of them afterward. It then occurred to me that we have options.

We need to contact businesses in other states working on their own voter suppression laws now.  I, for one, got on the phone this morning and talked with a representative from USAA (a company, btw, which I adore and has the best customer service ever).  They are, however, based in San Antonio TX.  In passing, I’ll also comment that corporate phone trees don’t offer an option to discuss voter suppression.  Treat this as if you wanted to contact them with a complaint.  Another option is to send them email.

Here are some companies (by state) you might want to reach out to.  For most companies, if you’re a customer, they’ll pay more attention.

If you click on the state link, it lists companies headquartered in that state, per Wikipedia.  I picked some of them and have included the company’s main link.

• Alabama: Mercedes-Benz U.S. International
• Arizona: Petsmart, GoDaddy, P.F. Chang’s, Sprouts Farmers Market,
• Connecticut: Xerox, Subway, ESPN, Newman’s Own, Duracell, The Hartford,
• Georgia: Delta Air Lines,The Coca-Cola Company, The Home Depot, Hitachi,
• Illinois: John Deere, United Airlines, McDonald’s, Allstate, State Farm,
• Mississippi: Viking Range,
• Minnesota: Andersen Corporation, Aveda, General Mills, Target Corporation,
• Missouri: Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Panera Bread, H&R Block, Anheuser-Busch, O’Reilly Auto Parts, Bass Pro Shops, AMC Theatres
• Oklahoma:Hitachi,
• New York: American Express, Dow Jones & Company, Foot Locker, The Frye Company, JetBlue, Loews Corporation, Mastercard, MetLife, PepsiCo,
•  Rhode Island: CVS Pharmacy, Playskool,
• South Carolina: Michelin, Park Seed Company, Denny’s,
• Texas: USAA, Dell Technologies, Valero Energy, Frito-Lay, Oracle Corporation, Pizza Hut, Jiffy Lube, The Michaels Companies, La Quinta Inns & Suites, Chili’s, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Whole Foods Market, 7-Eleven, AT&T,  ExxonMobil,

There are other things you can also do:

• If you work with or for a company, let them know that they need to make sure that states they work with are not taking part in voter suppression.
• Contact your alumni association and share your concerns.
• With the easing of travel restrictions, remind people they might want to travel to places that help people to vote — not discourage them.
• Continue to remind people to register to vote.

If we’ve learned nothing else over the last few years, hopefully, we’ve learned that we need to actively work to protect our rights.

If you’d like to join the Calaveras County Democrats, we’d like to hear from you.