I haven’t written in awhile, first because of the start of the semester, and then because of general malaise, and then (and most importantly) because I have been doing the work in different ways that I am now writing about. In other words, I have used spare minutes and nights beyond work and family to make sure people know deadlines for voter registration, that they know where they vote, that they understand what the ballot will look like before they get to the poll, and more.
And today is the deadline to register to vote in Tennessee. Fellow Tennesseans, if you read this on Monday October 7th and aren’t registered, you can still register online here
Other states have later voter registration deadlines, so if you live somewhere other than Tennessee and you know you aren’t registered to vote, check the deadline for your state here.
If you aren’t sure whether you are registered or not, you can check your voter registration status here.
Sweaty after knocking on doors for three hours this past Saturday!
One of my favorite resources to understand voting issues is the non-partisan Voting Rights Lab. They track election related legislation and voting issues in all 50 states.
I have written on this site about voting and elections before, once in the summer of 2020, where I outline some of these above resources and also party platforms and the electoral college and how I approach teaching about these concepts with undergrads.
I also wrote here about some of the movement and resistance work that went into the passage of the Voting Rights Act, including the testimony of Fannie Lou Hamer, and how this could be incorporated into your teaching.
And one more look in the archives of this blog shows me I wrote about RBG and her concerns about voter suppression, and it also has a link to Dr. King’s speech “Give us the Ballot”.
Last week I did a session on campus with a couple of other colleagues as part of diversity week. The focus of our session was on equity and disparities in voting. I can’t figure out how to link the slide deck here, but if you email me (sabrina.sullenberger@belmont.edu), I will be happy to share it with you.
FINALLY…. I hear several students say that they are thinking about not voting because they don’t like any of the candidates. And after some discussion with them, usually what I learn is that they don’t like the presidential candidates. So, it is always good to have a discussion about down ballot voting. I tell students that the farther down the ballot, the closer it impacts their daily lives. (You can argue with me, but whatever…it usually gets them to reconsider not voting.) Related, here is a good discussion on down ballot voting.
Teaching (toward) the Beloved Community 