Dear Fellow Americans,
I'm reaching out to you today because I believe that we share a great concern for what is happening in the U.S. Many if not most of the actions of this administration and the inactions of this Congress overwhelm me with outrage. I sometimes feel frozen, but the consequences of inaction are severe!
Personal Commitment:
July and August are our annual appeal months this year. I have just made my annual stewardship donation to DACB (Democrats Abroad Costa Banderas) to support our organization’s work helping U.S. Citizens abroad stay engaged and voting. Your and my funding goes to support costs of setting up and running Vote From Abroad centers in the area with printing and faxing services, local communications about how and where to access voting help from trained Voter Assistants, and election requirements and deadlines. DACB also contributes to support the VoteFromAbroad.org and phone banking online platforms, voter assistance and phone bank training, legal response teams, and Mexico-wide outreach and voter information communication.
This September we also hope to rent space for a week in the shopping center on Basilio Badillio that has a DHL so that voters can walk their ballots to the office and send them to the U.S. Embassy in CDMX to forward to the USPS. As you probably know reliably sending mail to the U.S. from here can be very pricey- $80USD-$130 per address.
The Challenge:
Our last best chance to defend democracy in the U.S. and to save our beloved institutions (such as Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security) was November of 2024. After seeing how poorly and selfishly Trump responded to the pandemic in 2020, after seeing him rally an attack on our Capitol in 2021, and after all our work to help people to register and to return their ballots, we still lost the Presidency, the Senate, and the House. The hemorrhage of women, Latino, and young voters was critical, but worse was inaction of eligible voters to vote. It has been devastating!
We know that we must overcome relentless lies about the economy, about immigrants, and about voter fraud. We have many of the levers of U.S. government and billionaire owned media causing us significant headwinds despite the general unpopularity of Trump and Republicans.
We can counter by increasing voter turnout. It is estimated that over 3 million non-military US citizens overseas are eligible to vote, but only 7-17% vote. The voter participation rate was 65% for the U.S. overall in 2024, which was down from 66% in 2020. Increasing the overseas voting rate to 65% in 2026 would quadruple our cast ballots and likely give us the margins to effect much of the change we need.
In Summary:
Can you help this election cycle? I fear this might be our last good chance. We must overcome even more voter suppression actions including litigation and court challenges to overseas ballots. Also, we must fill-in for the Federal Voting Assistance Program’s discontinuing its free email-to-fax service without violating the numerous laws limiting voter assistance.
We rely 100% on donations and volunteers. Please help us to get-out-the-vote (GOTV) in 2026 and make the difference we need! Click on the "Support DACB" link to donate as you are able.
With many thanks, sincerely,
Clint Harris, Chair DACB 2025-27
