Nobody’s Free Until Everybody’s Free

“Freedom is never given voluntarily by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

I don’t know much about all the geopolitical nuances of what is happening currently in the Middle East. However, if my past years of work in research and learning through deconstruction and anti-racism have taught me anything, it was to advocate for the less fortunate, downtrodden, and oppressed. When listening to black voices, indigenous voices, and the voices of other people of color, when fellow christians call for repentance, when our Jewish siblings call for a stop to this genocide and join our Muslim siblings’ calls for an urgent ceasefire to this one-sided war with rules which the Israeli state government indicates they do not care to honor - I am compelled to take some form of action.

I heard the terrorist attack from October 7th being compared on a scale worse than September 11, 2001, and I remember that day. I remember the fear, confusion, sadness and resulting anger, rage, resentment, and advocation for the war afterward. Now being on the other side of that war and learning the motivations behind it, the havoc it caused, hatred it fed, families it displaced, people it disabled, and lives it took, I can say this type of senseless revenge in the form of erasure of an entire people is not the answer. Silence and neutrality during a time such as this only favors the oppressor. At this time, from what history I learned and voices I listened to so far, that oppressor is the Israeli state government. I beg the state government of Israel to stop this collective violent and intolerant act against the Palestinian people.

Call to Action

If you are a citizen of the United States, please call your House and Senate representatives now.

Below you will find links to tools to contact your representatives along with with scripts you may use as a guide if you do not know what to say. To use these tools, you will need to provide information such as your home address in order to determine who your representatives are. Please use the first link to the official United States government tool if you do not wish to provide that information for either of the non-profit organizations’ links provided below.

2022 Texas Midterm Voting

The 2022 elections are well underway, but it’s not too late to formulate a plan and get out to vote, Texans! You have until November 4th to skip the long lines and vote early, otherwise you’ll need to vote on Election Day with is November 8th, 2022. Below are some helpful links and other information so you’re prepared to hit the polls!

Where Can I Vote?

Check your early voting and polling locations as well as other voter registration by checking the Texas Secretary of State’s website here and use the “Am I Registered?” tool. Keep in mind you’ll already have needed active voter registration or mailed in your new voter registration on or before October 11, 2022 in order to vote for this round of elections (Texas’s rules, not mine). It will also be pertinent to make sure you have a valid form of ID (once again, a TX government rule) before trying to vote. Luckily The Texas Tribune has a list of all the valid forms of identification accepted in order to vote in Texas for the midterms

What’s on my Ballot?

Usually your county’s government website will have a sample ballot for you to view so you can prepare before you actually head to the polls. You can also use non-profit organization online ballot lookup tools such as Vote411’s online tool or the handy tool found on Texas Tribune’s 2022 Voter Guide. Since ballots will vary based on what county or voting district to which you reside, you’ll need to provide the address where you’re registered to vote to get the most accurate information.

How can I be an Informed Voter?

Now that you know where your closes polling place is and what is on your ballot, how will know how you want to vote? This is a great question to ask, and thank you for wanting to be an informed voter! There are a couple different approaches I’ll detail out below - one general and one more targeted.

Learn About the Different Party Platforms

If you have no idea what party you align with (or maybe you’re just undecided), you may want to take a look at each party’s specific platform to see what values they hold and what their priorities are in the political arena. From my own Texas ballot I found four different parties: Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, and Green. Find the link for each party’s platform below and see what you may share most with each.

• The Republican Party of Texas Platform

• The Texas Democratic Party Platform

• The Libertarian Party of Texas Platform

• The Green Party of Texas Platform

Once you have a general idea of how you may align with each party, we can look closer at the candidates on the ballot through voting guides.

Learn About the Candidates

There are a few different organizations in Texas that help create extensive voter guides and gather candidate to help make you as informed of a voter as possible. Here are a few tools and resources that I use whenever voting season approaches:

• League of Women Voters (LWV) of Texas - my go-to resource for my vote-planning. I feel this tool is most useful during primary season as that is where we can dig deep to find the candidate that best aligns with our values and views, but this can also be a helpful tool if you’re new to the voting process. Use the Vote411 tool under the “Find what is on your ballot!” section to generate an interactive sample ballot where you can compare candidates. LWV sends out questionnaires to each candidates to see how they’ll tackle political issues across Texas. You can compare candidate responses and select who best aligns with your views. At the end you can have your selections emailed to you so you can print out or save for later.

• The Texas Tribune’s Voter Guide - A leading favorite of mine as a transparent Texas news source, the Texas Tribune has a handy tool that shows you the map of each district in which you reside after providing your voter registration address and a list of candidates running for each seat. Although they don’t have as much information on each candidate as LWV, their historical district and voter breakdowns are useful to see the constituent makeup for each voting district.

• League of Women Voters & Vote411 Non-Partisan Voters Guide - that sums up this resource. The LWV and Vote411 team up to provide a non-partisan voters guide that lists all eligible candidates for each seat as well as their respective views and plans on what they will do in the position if elected.

VOTE!

By now you should have found your closest early voting location, researched what party you align with most, and determined what candidates for whom you plan to vote. Now just double check you have your valid form of ID and head to the polling place to make your voice heard!

PSA Texans: Register to Vote!

Whether it’s a district, county, state, or nationwide primary or general election, they always seem to creep up on me. As a result, I also end up anxious as to whether my voter registration is current. 18 states and Washington DC have same-day voter registration on election days, while 42 states (and Washington DC) have online voter registration available - a progressive move bringing power to citizens to help them exercise their constitutional right to choose their representation in our government.

Texas unfortunately is neither of those.

The only way to register to vote within Texas requires you to send a physical registration application in a stamped envelope to your local county’s Registrar’s office. Even if you’ve registered before, your voter registration can still expire after a period of time, and the resources the Texas government provides doesn’t make it straightforward to tell whether your voter registration is current.

For example, when using Texas’s “Am I Registered?” online search tool and type in my TDL (Texas Driver’s License) and Date of Birth, I’m presented with information such as the date I originally registered (back in 2020), the date my registration is “Valid from" (whatever that means), and whether my registration is “ACTIVE” - to which the tool states my registration is of “ACTIVE” status. The tool does not provide a section stating when my voter registration may expire, which I remember reading on my last physical voter registration certificate as December 31, 2021. So now I’m left with conflicting information and I am unsure as to whether I will be turned away at the polling booth should I do nothing.

To make me question myself even more, the “Am I Registered?” tool even has a disclaimer at the bottom:

Note: 'Am I Registered?' provides a web-based search of data extracted from Texas’s statewide voter registration database. It is NOT the official record of your registration, which is retained by the voter registration office in the county of your residence.

As such I’m ultimately left with needing to send in yet another registration application. Better safe than sorry.

WHAT TO DO

I recommend (re)registering if you have any doubts on the current status of your voter registration. To do so, visit the VoteTexas.gov website. From there you’ll have three choices about registration:

1. Fill out the SOS Online Voter Registration Application and then print, sign, and mail the application to your county’s Registrar.

2. Request a printed application to have mailed to you. NOTE: this method is not advised if you’re looking to register within a week or two of the 30-day deadline.

3. Contact your Texas county’s Registrar’s office to complete the voter registration process.

The easiest option for me is the first one, and after answering a few questions I’m given a form to fill out with my necessary information to register. See example of the form web page below:

Screenshot of the Texas SOS Online Voter Registration Application form

For my case, I chose “Replacement” under Application Type because I no longer have my voter registration certificate since it was shown to have expired at the end of last year. However, if this is your first time registering you will select “New” and if you’re changing your voter registration information due to a change in home address or a name change, you would select the “Change” option and fill out the form accordingly.

After filling out all required fields and clicking “Submit” you’ll be presented with a formatted Texas Voting Registration application but you are NOT done yet. You will still need to print out this application, place the application in a stamped envelope, and address that envelope to your county’s Registrars office shown on the application. As long as it's in the mail before the 30-day deadline you should receive your new or updated voter registration certificate in the mail before the time election day or early voting begins.