In this Issue –

Events:

• July 4th Picnic in Graz
• 4th of July in the Park – Vienna
• Young Dems Open Mic
• Salzburg Meet-Up
• Linz Meet-Up
• Solidarity Sunday

Issues & Actions:

• DA Austria Sponsors Slovakia
• Gearing up for 2020 
  • Voter Registration Drives
  • DA Global Convention
• Global Black Caucus Summer Events
• Global Women's Caucus – Candidate Virtual Town Hall
• Are you waiting for your CARES Act aid payment?

Reviews:

• DAA at Black Lives Matter March
• Drag Queen Bingo Fundraiser Brings the Coin
• Dialing for Democracy Review
• Solidarity Sundays 34: Meet Our DNC Delegates & Police Reform

Our Executive Committee meetings are usually held on the second Wednesday of the month. However, our next meeting will be held online on: Wednesday, July 15, 2020, at 7 p.m.Members are welcome to join us at the meetings. Please contact Jennifer at chair@democratsabroad.atfor the link. 

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:

Issues & Actions:

DA Austria Sponsors Slovakia 

Democrats Abroad now allows for compliant country committees to “sponsor” countries that don’t have a country committee. Through the sponsorship DA Austria will provide Slovakia with essential voting information services, invitations to cross border events, and our monthly newsletter. 

The goal is to provide DA members in Slovakia with all the benefits of being a DA member. We’d like to heartily welcome you and look forward to meeting you in person. Until then, please follow us on our DA Austria website, Facebook Page, and Twitter and Instagram at #DemsAustria.

Vitajte!

Gearing up for 2020 —

Voter Registration Drive in Graz, Innsbruck, Linz, Vorarlberg & Vienna! 

We’ll be registering Americans to vote at various farmers markets and other venues over the summer. Please be sure to stop by and say hello and bring a friend to get them ready for November’s election. 

Feel the need to take action? Let us know if you can help us for a few hours at a voter registration table!

Americans living overseas must request their ballot in every calendar year they want to vote — yes, even if it’s normally sent to you automatically. Go to Vote From Abroad and request your ballot today and make sure to request it be sent to you by email!

Don’t procrastinate — ballots will be sent September 19. The time to request is now!

DA Global Convention

DPCA (Democratic Party Committee Abroad) representatives – these are the Chair, Vice Chair and voting reps from each country committee – met on Saturday, June 6 and Sunday, June 7 to elect three Global DNC members, three At-Large Sanders delegates, one Sanders alternate delegate and one Biden alternate, and one PLEO (Party Leaders and Elected Officials).

We also approved the final draft of the DA platform – you can read it here: democratsabroad.org/platform 

Global Black Caucus Summer Events

• Webinar: On the Strategic Value of U.S. Reparations - Saturday, July 25, 2020, at 9:00 a.m.  EDT/3:00 p.m. CEST https://www.democratsabroad.org/bc_reparations_webinar

• Webinar: Black Lives Matter and COVID-19 - Tuesday, July 28, 2020, at 1:30 p.m. EDT/7:30 p.m. CEST https://www.democratsabroad.org/black_lives_matter_and_covid_19_webinar

• GBC Film Screening: American History X - Thursday, August 06, 2020, at 1:30 p.m. EDT/7:30 p.m. CEST https://www.democratsabroad.org/bc_american_historyx

• Webinar: Democrats Abroad Welcomes Malcolm Nance - Thursday, September 10, 2020, at 9:00 a.m. EDT/3:00 p.m. CEST https://www.democratsabroad.org/bc_malcolm_nance_webinar_20200910

The events are also on our Facebook page.

Check out the latest poems from our Laureates:

• BLACK LIVES MATTER- Written for the Vigil
• Feeling Vulnerable Amidst the Chaos- Written for Juneteenth

– Angela Fobbs, Chair, Global Black Caucu #BlackLivesMatter

Global Women's Caucus – Candidate Virtual Town Hall

This month, the Candidate Information Action Team is excited to preview an upcoming series of events: our Candidate Virtual Town Halls! The team has been working behind the scenes to connect with campaigns across the U.S. to bring these fabulous women virtually to your screen. Keep an eye on your inboxes and our social media pages to hear more about the candidates who will be joining us and how to attend these virtual events. 

Separately, our Women to Winseries features two Iowans this month: Theresa Greenfield is running to represent Iowa in the Senate, and Rita Hart is running to serve Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District in the House.

– Kaitlynn Newcomb, GWC Editor for Candidate Information 

READ MORE

Are you waiting for your CARES Act aid payment?  

More than ten weeks have passed since Congress passed the CARES Act, providing, among other things, aid to low income Americans to supplement their household income during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. According to the House Ways and Means Committee, the IRS has sent out nearly 160 million Economic Impact Payments (EIPs) – some by direct deposit (120 million), some by check sent by traditional mail (35 million), and some by mailed Visa debit card (4 million).

If you are eligible for an EIP but have not received it, it might still be coming.

– Carmelan Polce, Taxation Task Force

READ MORE

Reviews:

DAA at Black Lives Matter March

On Thursday, June 4 about 20 DA Austria members marched behind our Democrats Believe... banner and joined the ±50,000 marchers at the Black Lives Matter protest in Vienna. Holding an American flag above the crowd, DAA Global Black Caucus Chair, Faith Hall-Herbold, was interviewed by multiple news outlets. The most frequent question was, “Have you ever experienced police brutality in Vienna? And What do you say to someone who says all lives matter?” We’ll be discussing these questions and how we talk about race at our September Solidarity Sundays on September 26. 

Drag Queen Bingo Fundraiser Brings the Coin

Cherry Poppins, Drag Queen extraordinaire, served up the glamour in the fight for democracy Saturday, June 13. Joining from New York City, Cherry headlined the LGBT+ Caucus‘ fierce fundraiser on behalf of Democrats Abroad. Over 50 DA members from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa joined the online event. As people filled in bingo cards, Cherry entranced with show-stopping tunes, and bestowed witty repartee to all as well as prizes to three lucky members.

Juan Cerda, DA Austria Vice-Chair and LGBT Caucus leader, announced that the event raised $1,600 for DA’s important get-out-the-vote work. “It was an exceptional evening, with a diversity of LGBT+ families and allies coming together to celebrate and have fun playing bingo with our hostess Drag Queen. Cherry brought a lot of joy and laughter to our effort to register Americans to vote back home.”

You can catch Cherry‘s rendition of Liza Minnelli‘s “Maybe This Time” here:  https://youtu.be/xgWedIGYIX0. The New Yorker encouraged Americans living abroad to vote this November. In the spirit of Cherry, we urge you to register and vote from abroad so in November we can say, “GOP, sashay away!”

—Tanya Lolonis, DA Austria Solidarity Sundays Co-Chair

Dialing for Democracy 

We had 131 callers from 12 countries participating. In total, callers made 8,316 calls (!) to DA members worldwide between 9 a.m.-9 p.m. CEST on June 14 to remind them to request their absentee ballots. Many thanks to those of you who participated and/or encouraged members in your country committee to call.

Prior to the event, we asked callers to commit to making a certain number of calls, and to also ask friends and family to sponsor their calls (just like a fun run, except instead of running a 10K, participants were making X number of calls). We collectively raised over $18,000 for the DPCA through callers’ sponsorships. As of June 19, just over $10,000 has already been donated through the DA donation page, and we are following up with other sponsors to ask them to make their pledged donations. The money will help keep DA’s worldwide voter outreach going strong through November! Thank you to all who sought pledges or donated. If you’d like to make a contribution, please do so here: https://www.democratsabroad.org/d4d_flagday_callathon_fundraiser

– Candice Kerestan, Chair DA Germany

Solidarity Sundays 34: Meet Our DNC Delegates & Police Reform

Solidarity Sundays returned to Amerlinghaus after three months in cyberspace! We didn‘t cut the internet cord entirely: Vienna welcomed attendees joining us remotely from around Austria, Europe and Africa.

Democrats Abroad is "sending" a 26-member delegation to the Democratic National Convention in August. They will be raising our profile within the Democratic party with the message that DA voters are the margin of victory in close races. We met Biden delegates Miguel Madrigal (Costa Rica), Marisa Grimes (Rwanda), Onelica Andrade (Belgium) and Platform member Heather Stone (Israel). Sanders Delegate Ty Cofield joined us from Poland. The delegates were interviewed by our own Biden delegate, Juan Cerda, DA Austria’s Vice-Chair and LGBT Caucus head. They shared stories how they joined Democrats Abroad — and how two of them are busy building country committees and growing DA‘s reach into Eastern Europe and Africa. They are the youngest and most diverse DNC delegation ever to represent overseas Democratic voters. The future looks bright.

As Black Lives Matter protests continue in the States, Solidarity Sundays surveyed the architecture of policing practices and lack of accountability. We looked at two, big buckets of solutions to police violence. One bucket involves reducing the power of police by managing how they use force and police union contracts. The other involves shrinking their role: since only 5% of all arrests are for violent crime, activists call for offloading the majority of budget resources to other places.

Attendees learned how to press for action from local leaders back home using online tools developed by Campaign Zero. *You can change bad policy yourself in under 5 minutes.* Visit 8cantwait.org to demand action from your mayor, then visit joincampaignzero.org to demand your representatives vote for reform.

—Tanya Lolonis, DA Austria Solidarity Sundays Co-Chair

Request Your Absentee Ballot!

Have you requested your ballot yet? visit votefromabroad.org and make sure that you’re all set to receive your ballot since COVID-19 has affected mail service to the US.

And while you’re there, check out their State Voting Guide to find your local election information and stay on top of deadlines and submission rules for this year’s elections.

Also, our VfA Voter Help Desk maintains an extensive FAQ resource. If you can’t find the answer you need there, you are welcome to submit your question to the VfA team of experts and you receive a reply, usually within just a few hours.

Registering to vote now is the number one thing you can do to help save our democracy. Please do it today!

Thanks for reading.

Keep up with our events over the summer on our website or on Facebook. See you in September for our next issue!

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Who We Are 

Democrats Abroad is the official arm of the Democratic Party representing Americans who live outside the US. Our mission is to to provide Americans living in Austria a voice in our government and to elect Democrats by mobilizing the overseas vote.

Our Caucuses

We have several active caucuses that focus on specific progressive issues/groups:

• Black Caucus
• LGBTQ+
• Progressive Caucus
• Solidarity Sundays
• Women’s Caucus
• Youth Caucus

Our Activities

These range from monthly get-togethers, lectures, panel discussions, film screenings, and guest speakers to political rallies and marches!  And more…

Are you an American in Austria? Become a DA member!

We keep you informed.