Why GOTV Campaigns Still Relevant for Black Voters

This publish was initially printed on Defender Community

By Tannistha Sinha

Forward of the Nationwide Voter Registration Day, Black Voters Matter partnered with BET Media Group and the Nationwide City League to launch “Reclaim Your Vote,” this yr’s marketing campaign in honor of Nationwide Black Voter Day (Sept. 15).

The partnership with BET is to encourage the participation of Black communities in voter registration and to make sure that the issues of Black voters are heard.

“Partnerships like this assist to energise our communities by conserving civic duty prime of thoughts,” mentioned Cliff Albright and LaTosha Brown, co-founders of Black Voters Matter. “As we put together for 2024, we should seize this chance to construct energy on the native degree by encouraging folks to get out and vote in native and statewide elections.”

This marketing campaign, which launched final week proper earlier than the nation’s largest single-day voter registration drive, is aptly referred to as a “get out the vote” or “getting out the vote” marketing campaign, which describes the efforts geared toward growing voter turnout in elections.

In keeping with a press launch, the marketing campaign “Reclaim Your Vote” prolonged by means of Nov. 18, 2023 and goals to beat “oppressive voter suppression techniques,” per the assertion.

The marketing campaign will give attention to seven states – Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. It’s going to present Black voters with digital assets on voter data.

“Their [Black Voters Matter] well timed and nuanced understanding of Black folks and communities is exactly what this marketing campaign must be profitable,” mentioned Brittany Packnett Cunningham, vice chairman of social affect at BET Media Group.

Why This Is Essential: Trying Again

March 31, 1870, is etched in Black historical past, when Thomas Mundy Peterson of Perth Amboy, New Jersey, turned the primary Black individual to forged a poll below the U.S. Structure’s fifteenth Modification. This modification, which granted African American males the precise to vote, was handed by Congress on Feb. 26, 1869, and ratified on Feb. 3, 1870.

Regardless of this monumental milestone the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was essential to once more make discriminatory voting practices unlawful. And nonetheless, the precise to vote for Black voters has encountered authorized exclusion for years.

In keeping with the Pew Analysis Heart, the variety of eligible Black voters had been projected to succeed in 32.7 million in November 2022. These voters additionally accounted for a excessive turnout charge of 51% (2018), greater than Latino and Asian voters in the identical yr (40%).

Moreover, eight states comprise round 50% of all Black eligible voters, led by Texas, with 2.7 million such voters.

How Does it Have an effect on Houston’s Harris County?

Texas Republicans, who’ve management over the State Legislature, allowed state authorities to oversee elections and gave the secretary of state the authority to order “a brand new election” within the county if ballots in additional than 2% of polling locations are unavailable for greater than an hour in Harris County, a Democratic stronghold with a inhabitants made up of a majority of individuals of coloration.

The justification is final yr’s precedent of the March 2022 major, when about 10,000 ballots weren’t counted instantly in an election, the county confronted a scarcity in ballot staff and ballots ran out in some locations. The elections administrator had then resigned.

Senate Invoice 1750 and 1933 goal Harris County specifically because it offers the governor-appointed secretary of state Jane Nelson extra energy to supervise elections and complaints, and to petition a courtroom to switch election officers at his discretion.

Furthermore, these measures had been taken months earlier than Houston’s mayoral race in November.

In 2021, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed off on a invoice that goals to impose felony penalties for the violation of voting legal guidelines, banned 24-hour and drive-through voting and gave partisan ballot watchers extra entry to election officers.