In our first live recording, Patagonia and Vote Early Day join us to talk all about voting, voting early, and how businesses can help turn out the vote. Our goal with this episode is to give you all the tools and information you need to help increase voter turnout in the communities you are a part of and impact. On today’s show we have Patagonia’s Director of environmental programs of North America, Rebecca Goodstein, and one of Patagonia’s nonprofit partners Vote Early Day represented by their program director Bryce Bennett. Bryce and Rebecca share all about the ways you can get involved and the importance of voting early.
Now, a little insider tip that I know we didn’t talk about on the show, but that I want to share with you here. If you get a lot of political calls and mail in the weeks leading up to election day, a very efficient way to reduce the number of calls, door knocks, and mail you receive, is to vote early. On the campaigns I used to work on we would regularly update our lists and purge any voters that had already voted so we could focus our efforts on those who hadn’t yet made it to the polls. Not saying it will stop entirely, but it certainly will help.
We’ll be writing letters to voters in Maine and Georgia from 4pm to 8pm at our office in the Sparhawk Mill in Yarmouth, Maine in collaboration with the nonprofit Vote Forward. Drop by for as short or as long as you’d like and join us in writing letters, enjoy some beer from b corp certified Allagash Brewing, and we’ll have plenty of grub for everyone. RSVP here to make sure we have enough for everyone and can accommodate any dietary or mobility needs you may have, and bring a friend!
Find out how early you can vote on Vote Early Day’s website. I can tell you, I usually try to vote as soon as early voting opens, that way if for some reason I miss it, I still have plenty of time to try again and avoid all the lines at the polls on election day. You can find that out and explore all the resources Vote Early Day has to get you to the polls including free rides to the polls from Lyft and Lime. They even have resources just for businesses looking to help turn out the vote.
Whether you are voting early, voting on Vote Early day October 28th, or on election day November 8th, make sure you have a solid plan to vote and that the people in your life have a plan to vote as well. Before joining Dirigo Collective I (Benn here, your host) started a little podcast for progressive organizers and activists called Ocean of Organizing. Under the Ocean of Organizing umbrella I created a bunch of resources for folks, one of which is a little worksheet to help you make a plan to vote.
Below is a short 1min video on how to make a vote plan. Do you have other resources or information that you think would help folks turn out the vote? Let us know! Drop us a note and we’ll review and amend these show notes as helpful content is submitted.