Georgia voters, your vote is powerful and will determine Biden's presidency!

Federal elections were held for both of Georgia’s US Senate seats on November 3, 2020. Both of these races are going to "runoff elections", to be held on January 5, 2021, as no candidate received at least 50% of the vote. Democrats need to win both of these seats to have a 50/50 Senate with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris able to cast the tie-breaking vote.

The two races are:

• US Senate: Jon Ossoff (Democrat) versus David Perdue (Republican)

• US Senate Special: Raphael Warnock (Democrat) versus Kelly Loeffler (Republican)

Both US Senate races in Georgia are going to a runoff election on January 5th, 2021. Ballots are available since November 21. 

💙 DA Global needs to raise funds for ads to support the GA Senate runoffs. We must turn out as many GA voters abroad as possible. Due to FEC rules, country committees cannot pay for the ads; only DA Global can. If you can give any amount to support this effort, that would be great! As proven, overseas voters are the margin of victory. Donate here: democratsabroad.org/georgia_runoff

Georgia voters, here's what you need to do today!

#1 Register to Vote by December 7 
🗳️ If you didn't vote in the November election, you can still vote in the runoff! Go to votefromabroad.org and request an absentee ballot or register to vote. Ask for your ballot to be sent to you by email. First time voters who will be 18 years old by January 5, 2021 can also vote!

#2 Check your ballot status
🏴 If you voted in November, check your absentee ballot status at mvp.sos.ga.gov/MVP/mvp.do

 

 

#3 Ballots must be returned by post or courier service
If your absentee ballot application has not been received, you will need to request a ballot at votefromabroad.org by Jan 5, 2021. Please don't wait—request and return your ballot immediately!

Ballot return to Georgia is by postal mail only, so hurry. Because of the mail disruptions from COVID and Christmas, voters should mail back their ballots ASAP. Regular mail may work in November, but by December it will be too late and you should definitely use a courier. Ballots must arrive in Georgia by January 8, 2021. The US Consulate in Vienna will accept ballots for the Diplomatic Pouch until 4pm Monday, December 7.

#4 Receive your ballot by email on November 21 and return it asap!
✍️ If you don't receive your official ballot, fill out and mail back a Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot (FWAB) at https://www.votefromabroad.org/fwab/. Because the FWAB isn't set up for two Senate races, here's an example FWAB showing how to fill it out:

 

FWAB Example:

 

 

#5 Check it was received

☑️ Verify your ballot was accepted, and fix if needed. georgia.ballottrax.net/voter

 

Questions?

👉 We're here to help!

• Email us at: helpdesk@votefromabroad.org
• Join a Georgia Abroad Voter Assistance personal zoom video session
• Call DA Austria Chair Jennifer at +43 6991 108 7981

 

You want to help get out the Georgia vote?
Reach out to Georgia voters in your networks and make sure they are ready to vote. 

• See more ways to help in these slides Help with the Georgia runoff election!
• Phonebank in Georgia for both the Ossoff and Warnock campaigns. Find more information at info mobilize.us/ These PhoneBanking campaigns currently require a US-based mobile phone number—or similar VoIP service like Google Voice, Skype In, or Line2—to be able to signup for calling. We are working to locate other calling opportunities as well.

 

PLEASE SHARE THIS INFORMATION WITH YOUR FRIENDS WHO VOTE IN GEORGIA.

In this Issue –

Events:

• DA Austria Election Night Party
• Global Programming for Nov 3 & 4
• "First Vote" Documentary Viewing
• Solidarity Sundays #38

Issues & Actions:

• Getting Out the Vote in Vorarlberg
• DA Austria in the News
• Gearing up for 2020
  • Voter Protection Survey
  • Democrats Abroad's 2020 Impact

Reviews:

• Innsbruck Meet-up
• Solidarity Sundays #37

Member's Corner:

• Art & Music Fridays
• Lockdown: Vienna Nights in the time of Corona

Our Executive Committee meetings are held on the second Wednesday of the month. Our next meeting will be held online on: Wednesday, November 11, 2020, at 7 p.m. Members are welcome to join us at the meetings. Please contact Jennifer at chair@democratsabroad.at to join. 

DAA is making a strong effort to include in our monthly newsletter all the information you need to stay up to date in order to avoid the flood of emails that occurs in an election year. By sending you fewer emails, we hope you will read those you receive. Thanks for reading!

EVENTS:

Election Night Party with a Twist! November 3, 9:30 PM – Online	Global Programming: 24 Hours November 3, 8:00 PM (CST)
View the Documentary "First Vote" Until November 10	Solidarity Sundays 38: Democracy - Let‘s Fix It! November 29, 4:00 PM

ISSUES & ACTIONS:

Getting Out the Vote in Vorarlberg

Democrats Abroad in Vorarlberg, Austria made themselves not only heard last week (through phone-banking and calling out from mountain tops) but also seen, with a 90 foot abroad banner exhorting compatriots in all lands to vote and vote right for Biden-Harris with Vengence! Have a look. 

Election Night with a Twist! Schedule

We’ll watch the news and so much more! Join us online for the DA Austria election night party. We’ve got a lot planned to keep us entertained and informed throughout the night. Here’s the full schedule–

Gearing up for 2020

This is the spot where we answer your frequently asked questions and make sure you, your family, friends, and colleagues have the voter information you need to be an enfranchised voter and make your vote count. Please share!

Democrats Abroad Impact in 2020

2020 has been a record breaking year for Democrats Abroad, as we have nearly tripled our outreach to Americans abroad and are on track to double the vote from abroad. The unique challenges presented by the global COVID pandemic and international mail disruption make these achievements particularly significant.

Our nonpartisan voter support tool - VoteFromAbroad.org - has seen more than 766,680 unique visitors visit the site more than 1 million times - nearly 3x 2016 traffic.

 We estimate that in 2020 approximately 1.8 million eligible American Voters living abroad have received ballots (compared to 930,156 ballots received in 2016).

 50% of ballots from American Voters Abroad will be returned to battleground states in this year’s election!

We are on target to DOUBLE 2016 voter turnout abroad. That means an additional 500,000 votes—and possibly 1 million!—sent from abroad. 

This success was made possible through the 18,000 volunteers who generously provide their support, as well as the donations of over 4000 donors, who donated over $650k this year to Democrats Abroad (an all volunteer run organization with no external funding). 

— Aaron Fishbone, DA Global Communications Director

Voter Protection Survey

Tell us about your voting experience so we can help make voting better for every American abroad. Let us know in this short survey. Your feedback and stories are vital for pushing election reform in Congress and in state legislatures.

This election cycle Individual leaders and volunteers testified in two Federal cases on behalf of voters abroad this fall. The first case was resolved with a successful judgement against Postmaster DeJoy. DA currently runs a voter protection division that includes a director, 9 lawyer volunteers, and voter protection volunteers tasked with organizing and managing the escalation of cases from our country committees and voter help communications.

DA Austria in the News  

DA Austria has been in the news a lot recently in the run up to the election on Tuesday. Be sure to watch or tune in! Young DA Austria members will be asked about their feelings about the election on Ö3. Other spokespeople will appear early in the morning on Wednesday on Servus TV and Puls 4 and later in the afternoon on ORF 2 Vorabend, Ö1 Radio Journal Panorama, Puls 4 Pro & Contra will take place at 8:30pm and finally Runder Tisch at 10:25pm on ORF. 

REVIEWS:

Innsbruck Meet-up 

A group of DA members living in Innsbruck get together at Glorious Bastards restaurant on Friday, October 9. Tyler reported, "It was a great success! Everyone had turned in their ballots already and we'll meet up again in December."

Solidarity Sundays #37: Can We Trust the Polls?

The 2016 election shocked most of us. How could Trump win the presidency when he was behind in the polls? On the eve of the most important election in our lifetime, this Solidarity Sundays webinar explored what went wrong in 2016 and asked — was the same thing happening again?

Tanya Lolonis ran through how polls are made. Building them is partly art — figuring out what the electorate will look like, then selecting a sample of respondents who look like that. The other part — calculating the sampling error, the ± 3 or so attached to a poll’s results — is the science.

In 2016, national polls got it right, correctly predicting Clinton’s popular vote win. Battleground state polls, though, were way off. Why? The samples they selected (the art part) were wrong. State polls underrepresented white non-college educated voters — a fatal error. That year, education was the best predictor of white voter preferences — those with college degrees went for Clinton, those without degrees preferred Trump. Pollsters build models based on how the electorate looked in the past. It’s why they miss tectonic shifts, like blue collar voters moving from Democrat to Republican under Reagan. In 2016, they missed the educational achievement shift.

By the time you read this, we’ll know if pollsters got it right in 2020. We have great confidence they won’t make the same mistake twice. Still, a “pandemic election“ won’t make predictions easier. We are on the edge of our seat to learn what new error they make.

What to do when polls menace your sleep? Two things help. First, don‘t trust individual polls. Be guided by a good meta-pollster, like Nate Silver’s fivethirtyeight.com. They average polls to flatten the error fluctuations, and weight the most reliable polls so you don’t have to.

Second, do something within your control. Michael Wagner, DA Austria’s Phonebanking Coordinator, shared the impact volunteers have had in turning out the expat vote. In October alone, 18 phonebankers made 4,800 calls out of Austria to the world. Two weeks before election day, nearly 60,000 members globally told 700 phonebankers they had voted.

Forecasting the future is difficult; helping to shape it is potent.

MEMBER'S CORNER

Art & Music Fridays

An exhibit and concert series by DA Austria member Kathleen Amos Eichorn in Sulz im Wienerwald. Individual, hour-long seatings available from 7-10pm following Covid regulations. Please email kathy.artistherapy@gmail.com to confirm upcoming dates and make a reservation.

Lockdown: Vienna Nights in the Time of Corona

Dear all, I'm producing a coffee table book of the photographs I took in Vienna at night during LOCKDOWN, and I am hosting a crowdfunding site with REWARDS for contributions. You can view the site at  wemakeit.com and search Danny LoCascio. 

Or click this link LOCKDOWN: Vienna Nights in the time of Corona  

– Danny LoCasio

Thanks for reading the November newsletter! 

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