President & CEO of the Global Black Economic Forum, Alphonso David talks about early voting and the importance of making sure you are registered to vote.
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00:00Welcome to Paint the Polls Black, which is a voter awareness, voter registration,
00:05and voter mobilization initiative. It's being supported by the Sundial Group of Companies,
00:11which includes Essence, the Global Black Economic Forum, Girls United, Afropunk,
00:18Refinery29, BeautyCon, and the New Voices Foundation. Our goal is to educate, mobilize,
00:25and register voters to take action this November and into the future. For some of you who have
00:31been with us for the past several weeks, we hosted our first town hall in the beginning of August
00:37with Congresswomen Jasmine Crockett and Chantel Brown, Bakari Sellers, Van Lathan,
00:43Lanae Vanee, and kicking us off for the very first town hall, we had the one and only D. Nice.
00:50Tonight, we are hosting our sixth of eight town halls where we will be focusing on early voting.
00:57We are exactly three weeks away, or 21 days away, if you like, from election day, and we want to
01:05walk you through what it means to vote early and why it's important to vote early. A few housekeeping
01:12rules. This is a nonpartisan call focused on voter registration and mobilization. Further,
01:18this is not a fundraising call. There are many other events that are focused on fundraising.
01:22We're here to provide awareness and information for all of you to make sure that you can actively
01:27engage in this year's election. We will also be answering your questions, so please put your
01:31questions in the chat, and we will try to get it to as many questions as we can as we do every week.
01:37Also, there is a link for voter registration. The deadlines in some states have passed,
01:43but not all states, and you can still register in some states. If you are registered,
01:48also, we're asking you to please make sure that you're still on the roster.
01:52You can go to paint the polls black. You can also go to vote.org to make sure that you get
01:59information about registration, and you can check your registration. Finally, sit back,
02:04relax, and enjoy this town hall. Tonight, we are missing our very own Ebony McMorris. She
02:11unfortunately can't be with us because she's traveling, but we are going to continue the show
02:16as planned. Early voting, as many of you know, think back to 2020. You all remember the vibe
02:23four years ago. COVID was rampant, but it was so important for so many of us to cast our votes,
02:30and we decided that we couldn't, of course, go to the polls in some cases, and we couldn't
02:35interact with our family and friends, and we voted by mail. Many of us voted by mail.
02:41Early voting had such a renaissance in 2020 that the percentage of people who casted their ballots
02:47by mail grew to 46%, more than doubling the number of people who had voted early in 2016.
02:56Specifically in 2020, approximately 60% of Democrats, 6-0, and 32% of Republicans
03:04voted by mail. There was a huge increase in 2020. Early voting, as many of us know, is not new.
03:13We have been voting early in some format since the founding of our country,
03:17and voting has held over, as many of you know, over the course of several days so that voters
03:24in many parts of the country could have ample time to travel to town or certain county courthouses
03:30to cast their ballots. But what does it actually mean when we say to vote early?
03:37Well, early voting references a few different ways in which you can cast your ballots.
03:43You have in-person voting, early voting, as the name suggests. It means that you can go
03:47before election day and cast your votes at a local polling place. There is also,
03:53in addition to in-person early voting, there is also mail-in voting, which is when you submit
04:00your ballot via the mail. In some states, anyone can vote via the mail, while in other states,
04:07voting by mail is restricted to certain circumstances. We're going to show you a
04:12map right now that showcases the differences in early voting throughout the country.
04:18The states that are highlighted in the color blue means that all voters in those states
04:25have the options to vote early in person and by mail. So where you see all of the blue,
04:33if you live in one of those states, you can vote early in person as well as by mail.
04:40Now, if you live in the states that are colored yellow, that means that you have the option to vote
04:46early in person, but you have to be eligible to vote by mail. And then finally, the states
04:55that are in red represent states where there is no option to vote early in person, and to vote by
05:03mail, there has to be an eligible reason. So I want to keep that up for just a little while longer.
05:08If you look at the blue, you have options to vote early in person and by mail, and it's available
05:13to all voters. And if you vote early in person, it's available to you if you live in the yellow
05:20states. In the red states, unfortunately, early voting is not allowed in those states except under
05:28certain circumstances. So now that we understand the landscape, let's talk about who is eligible
05:38to vote early, or who has voted early. That's probably the better way to frame it. As of today,
05:45more than 5 million people, 5 million, have already cast their votes through the mail or
05:52in person nationally. Early voting has already started in many states, although the exact
05:58deadlines of when you can request an in-person ballot, must submit a ballot, or when you can
06:04start going online differs by state. While in 2020, states made early voting easier because of
06:11the pandemic, over the past few years, unfortunately, some states have made it much
06:17more difficult to cast your votes early in this election. Throughout tonight, we will be showcasing
06:24information and deadlines about when you can vote, and we will also be highlighting the states
06:32that each speaker is representing. So for example, I currently live in New York. I'm a New Yorker.
06:38So we want to show you this slide that highlights some of the important deadlines to know for those
06:43who live in New York. So as you can see, Saturday, October 26, is the last day for voter registration
06:50in person or online if you live in New York. And then the last day to request a mail ballot
06:56is Saturday, October 26, and then the deadline for mail ballots to be postmarked is November 5.
07:04The very first day for in-person voting, early voting, is Saturday, October 26, a few days before
07:11election day, and then the last day is Sunday, November 3. And of course, as we all know,
07:18election day is on Tuesday, November 5.