Happy Democrats Abroad Day!

Mark your calendars and help us celebrate: The first annual Democrats Abroad Day will take place around the world this Saturday, September 8!

Democrats Abroad Day is an annual celebration to show off your Democrats Abroad pride, wherever you are.

If your local chapter is hosting an event, we hope you’ll join. But to celebrate with as many of you as possible, and to tell the world that we represent the 9 million Americans overseas who are engaged and VOTE, we’re asking you to join our virtual party, too.

Want to help make the blue wave happen? Here are four things you can do in your home:

1. Remind your Democratic-leaning friends abroad and in America to vote in the midterm elections.
2. Share the three memes in this post on your social networks. If you belong to any online groups, share the meme with them too. In this election, everyone counts. 
3. Ask your stateside Alma Mater to help study abroad students Vote From Abroad. It’s easy to do and you can find all the information you need to do it here.
4. Sign up for Phone banking and do it. The best way to get people to vote is to call them and remind them to vote. It is not too late, we still have a few hundred calls to make to reach all DA Germany members! You can choose from the “DA Germany Non-Berlin” or the “DA Germany-Berlin” campaign in the DA CallHub and talk directly to other DA members reminding them, not only to register to vote and request their ballot but to join the local chapter or precinct next meeting and events.

• To log in to your Callhub account, go to https://callhub.io and click on "login" in the upper right corner. When you get to the next screen, enter your Username (example: DE-Beverly-Seebach) and your password. Note: You must use Google Chrome to phone bank.
  
• If you don't remember your password, just click on "forgot" in the corner of the password box and we'll email instructions how to set up a new password.

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And please be sure to review the Updated Phone banking Training Materials for a full explanation of recent updates to the Phone banking system:

UPDATED GOTV Phone banking Introduction (June 2018).  Please review all, but especially new slides 17, 18 and 21-25

UPDATED 2018 Phone banking Do's and Don'ts (June 2018)

If you have any questions please contact the international team at [email protected] or Beverly at [email protected]  or Katie at [email protected]

There are 96 days until the midterm elections but there’s even less time until the cutoff date for overseas voters to request their ballots. If you have not registered to vote/requested your ballot, now is the time. Go to Votefromabroad.org and do it today! If you are already registered, it doesn't hurt to check your registration at https://iwillvote.com/. This election is extremely important, don’t get disenfranchised by Republican tricks. Also, if your state's primary has already occurred and you didn’t receive a ballot for that election, you might not be registered.

Need information on the candidates running in your state's elections?  You can use Ballotpedia’s Sample Ballot Lookup Tool. All you need is your voting address and you can find out who’s running in the various elections. There are links to the candidates' website’s, information on ballot measures and more. If your state has not had it’s primary elections yet, you can get information on primary candidates there too.

Democrats Abroad Germany will have stands and march in many pride events across Germany this year. If you are interested in marching with us in the parades or working at one of the stands contact: [email protected] Come join us or just stop by and say hello. We need to stand together now more than ever.

Date and Location

08 July, Cologne (March and Stand)
14 July, Munich (March and Stand)
21 July, Leipzig (Stand)
28 July, Berlin (Stand)
28 July, Braunschweig (Stand)

28 July, Stuttgart (March)
04 August, Hamburg (Stand)
11 August, Mannheim (March and Stand)
25 August, Bremen (Stand)

It's a great time to get involved with Democrats Abroad Germany (DAG) Veterans and Military Families Caucus.

We need members and leaders! We encourage all interested Democrats Abroad Germany members to join the caucus. To join, just fill out this form. If you are interested in being on the steering committee please also indicate that on the form. 

Currently, the caucus has only two serving officers, Kirk Samson, who is leaving in August for the US, and Michael Lee, so we really need your help. A robust caucus ensures that Democrats Abroad Germany remains a key player in issues involving the U.S. military presence in Germany and helps to support veterans and family members’ issues that are unique to our overseas constituency. 

Please join us!

Also, if you are a veteran residing in Germany, we recommend that you keep an eye on the VA Benefits Bulletin

Thank you,

Kirk Samson and Michael Lee

Co-Chairs, Germany Veterans and Military Families Caucus
DA Germany

There are 158 days until the midterm elections. If you have not registered to vote or requested your ballot, now is the time. Go to Votefromabroad.org and do it today! If you are already registered, it doesn't hurt to check your registration at https://iwillvote.com/. This election is extremely important, don’t get disenfranchised by republican tricks. #VotingMatters

It looks and feels like we have quickly moved into summertime in Germany. We hope that everyone is staying cool, eating lots of ice cream, and able to still enjoy the sun (don’t forget your sunscreen)! To provide you with some cool thoughts, you can already start to think about fall and our  10th Annual Oktoberfest Extravaganza on Sunday, October 7th. If you sign-up before July 1st, tickets are only 65€ and this includes a reserved seat in the “Gallerie”, a half roasted chicken (vegetarian options are available), 2 liters of Spaten beer (there are other beverage options, too), and a 10-euro coupon for other purchases. Make sure you sign-up now because starting July 1st, tickets will go up to 75€.

June - Upcoming Election Information

California’s primary election on June 5 will be one of the most important –and bizarre - contests of the entire primary season. The Golden State is crucial to Democrats’ effort to retake the House and Republicans currently hold seven districts which Hillary Clinton won in 2016. With so many Democrats running, and because of the state’s “top two” open primary system, there is a risk that the vote will be split, allowing Republicans — who have fewer candidates — to dominate some primaries. Watch this video to learn more about the California primary system and the problem this year

If you are a California voter, make sure you have a choice in November and vote in the Primary on June 5th!

For more details about What is on the Primary Ballot for the June 12 State Primaries and June 19 and June 26 Primaries on the DA website Voting blog.

I’m Michelle Cummings-Koether, and I am the new Women’s Caucus Chair for Germany. I am here to help coordinate Women’s topics and events in Germany, and to try to place a focus on important Women’s topics for Democrats Abroad. I look forward to working with the various Chapters and Precincts in Germany, to help keep a bright light on topics that affect Women in the United States.

A little about myself. I was born in the US and have spent my life traveling between the US and Germany. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and now live in Munich. When I am not fighting for Women’s topics, I work as an interculturalist, consulting American and European companies on how to work together. I also teach intercultural topics at three universities in Munich and Augsburg. To help me regain footing and to help me keep focused, I hang out with my dog while she works as a therapy assistant dog with disabled kids.

I would also like to announce that the Women’s Caucus will be holding the Germany Women's Caucus Workshop (Open to Democrats Abroad Worldwide) on September 22nd in Berlin. With the theme “refocus, revisit, resist & re-empower” we will hold an all day event followed by dinner. This event will be open to all DA members worldwide. Please RSVP today. More details to follow.

I am looking forward to this new opportunity and the challenges that will arise. As my consultancy takes me all across Germany, I hope to meet with some of the Chapters personally soon. If you need to reach me, my email is [email protected].

Hello everyone, my name is Lori-Kaye and I have been appointed the chair of the Black Caucus in Germany. I have been living in Germany near Frankfurt for 13 years and vote in New York. As an international opera singer, I have had the opportunity to do a lot of traveling and getting to know many people and cultures. That's one of the reasons why I would like to get as many people involved in racial justice issues that are not only plaguing our country but, the entire world to this day.  The only way for we as Americans to be able to live peacefully is through accepting diversity in all its forms. In my opinion, racism is a lack of knowledge of other persons and its based on willful ignorance through certain news organizations, representation through our film and music industry, or passed down through family generations, to name a few.

Any person or any race or ethnicity can join the Black Caucus. If you are a person who believes in universal and unconditional human rights, and you are not a member of the Black Caucus, please join. I would love to get to know all of you and have some real conversations to come up with real solutions to this epidemic. Please take this survey. The purpose of this survey is to find out how many people would be interested in getting together for some of these fun events once a month and how many from each chapter so that I can get an idea as to how to organize it.  Just for starters, the subjects include:

• Book Club
• Martini Night with friendly political banter
• Movie Night in a cozy living room with snacks
• Labor Day American BBQ

If you have any ideas or suggestions, please specify on the survey. You can always contact me via email at [email protected]. Thank you for your participation and I look forward to hearing from you.

You can follow the Global Black Caucus on Facebook and Twitter