Activism: postcards to voters

One of the bits of activism I've been doing is "postcards to voters,", in which volunteers em>hand-write postcards to strangers; if writing hurts your hand, you probably shouldn't be doing this one. Also, you'd be paying for stamps and postcards, but the minimum commitment is only four cards.

The idea behind this is that a hand-written postcard from a stranger, with reasons to vote for a specific candidate, will be effective some of the time. Each postcard urges the recipient to vote for a specific candidate (e.g., Stacey Abrams for governor of Georgia), reminds the recipient when election day is, and has one other mandatory talking point. For one candidate, the mandatory talking points include "An election can sometimes turn on a single vote—make it yours." They also give a long list of optional content, if you have room on the postcard, ranging from campaign promises to "thank you for being a voter." There's some room for paraphrasing, but they're asking us to stick to the campaign's messages.

I've been writing things like "promises to fully fund public schools" and "will expand Medicaid to provide job and rescue rural hospitals" on the postcar (The cards are all going to registered Democrats, if that matters to you.)

This is oddly anonymous: you the writer are given addresses but not names, and above the address, instead of a name, write something neutral [sic] but encouraging, like "Concerned Citizen" or "Valued Voter." There's no return address. and the signature should be a first name or initials: so, I sign them "Vicki," "Vicki R.," or "VR" (and there's nothing stopping me from signing them "Victor" or "Natasha if I wanted).

rydra_wong suggested I write this up after I mentioned it in a comment; I'm posting this to my own journal and to thisfinecrew.

At least it was good exercise...

I was planning to go to a protest today (against the proposed change to the "public charge" rule). I wrote down the location, and looked up transit info; the MBTA suggested taking the red line to Downtown Crossing and walking from there.

I allowed lots of time, so I could grab a bite to eat at Pret a Manger. Then I tried following Google Maps directions. Which not only got me lost, but was sufficiently confusing that the "distance/time to destination" was increasing as often as decreasing. I finally got to the address I was looking for, and there was nothing there: not only no rally, but no park or other space one could have been held in.

By then it was well after the announced starting time, so I decided to cut my losses: I might not have known where I was going, but I knew where I was, and how to get to the Green Line from there. I thought "chalk it up to exercise," then remembered that two weeks ago (or any time in the year or so before that) I would have been in pain after doing what my phone thought was a little over two kilometers. Today, I got off the train at Lechmere and walked to Toscanini's for a restorative hot fudge sundae (adding about another kilometer to the total for the outing).

At Tosci's, the server commented that she liked my "I stand with immigrants, and I vote" pin, in a way that led me to ask if she'd like it. She said something like "if you're sure," and I told her I had two more at home, and then explained where I'd gotten them. (The last time I volunteered with MIRA to register voters, they had a bagful and were happy for me to grab a couple of extras to share.)

The ice cream was good, as always: I had raspberry and sweet cream in my sundae, and brought home pints of chocolate chip and raspberry. The rest of the afternoon involved a little bit of paid proofreading, and some (mostly PT) exercises.

Dinner tonight was ravioli and a roast koori squash, a variety we hadn't had before: small, bright orange, and based on one sample cattitude and I both prefer acorn squash, but I would be happy to eat this again, and it's a better size to serve as a side dish for two people. A roast acorn or butternut squash for two people is the centerpiece of the meal.

Tomorrow will be a rest day; more proofreading, but no long walks or exercises for the sake of exercise.