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Clint Smith @ClintSmithIII
, 3 tweets, 1 min read Read on Twitter
I’m incredibly moved by the people who wait in longs line to vote, but it’s absolutely infuriating that these long lines exist in the first place. Early voting being reduced, polls being closed, hours of operation for the polls being shortened. It makes a mockery of democracy.
I’m thinking of parents who stood in line but had to leave to pick up their kids or go to work, students who had to leave to go to class, the elderly who couldn’t be outside for that long.

All of these ppl *want* to vote, but we have a system that makes it egregiously difficult.
When you see long lines for voting it’s not something to celebrate. The *people* in the lines are worth celebrating but not the line itself.
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More from @ClintSmithIII see all

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2019 marks the 400th year since enslaved Africans were brought here, before this was even a country. Black people have only had any semblance of full citizenship for about 50 yrs. I don't think the public always grasps the enormity of state-sanctioned oppression on that timeline.
If you kick someone for 350 years, and then stop kicking them (but really just kick them in a different way) for a *seventh* of the amount of time you spent kicking them, it would be completely disingenuous to look at the person and be like, "What's wrong with you? Just get up."
I just think it's worth reflecting on the incessant, intergenerational violence that black folks in this country have experienced, and the sheer amount of time they've experienced it for. All things considered, it's remarkable what our community has done in spite of this history.
Read 3 tweets
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I’m always struck by ppl who express admiration for those like Douglass & Tubman while labeling policies that attempt to build a more just & moral society “unrealistic.” Do these ppl think abolishing slavery was widespread & popular policy proposal in the 19th century? It wasn’t.
The US had quite literally never existed w/o the institution of slavery alongside it. The first enslaved Africans arrived in 1619 & the US became an independent nation in 1776.

Abolition required imagining a country that had never existed, a radical reconception of the republic.
So when I see ppl who express admiration for something like the abolition of slavery, but who turn around & say that something like The Green New Deal is unrealistic, it seems to demonstrate a lack of understanding of how meaningful social change has ever happened in the country.
Read 4 tweets
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as the year comes to a close something worth considering is that some of the "we've never been so divided" narrative exists bc many groups of historically marginalized ppl are voicing concerns they have long expressed, but it's only now that certain ppl are beginning to hear them
if your analysis of our country never included the voices of women, immigrants, black ppl, indigenous ppl, the lgbtq community, muslims, or any ppl living at the intersection of those identities, then maybe it comes as a surprise that a lot of ppl are, and have long been, fed up
if you close your eyes for long enough some people can convince themselves that oppression is no longer there, but closing your eyes doesn't make something disappear, it just means you were choosing not to see what was right in front of you
Read 3 tweets

Related threads

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I’m at Annistown Elementary School in Snellville, GA, where hundreds of voters have waited 4.5 hours to vote today because electronic voting machines weren’t working
.@RepHankJohnson told me this issue is happening in at least 4 precincts in Snellville. He blamed Brian Kemp and called it a “last gasp” effort by Republicans to suppress voters of color
One African American voter told @joshua_eaton she arrived here at 7 am and didn’t vote until almost noon. Her husband left the line because he had to go to work
Read 11 tweets
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/Short FREAK'N THREAD 🔥🔥🔥

Today ⬇️:

"Our agencies have been making preparations for nearly TWO YEARS IN ADVANCE of these elections & are closely engaged with officials on the ground to help them ensure the voting process is secure."
"Americans can rest assured that we will continue to stay focused on this mission LONG AFTER polls have closed."

2/
Two Years Ago: "As the hours ticked by on Election Day, teams at the FBI, DHS & the Office of the Director of National Intelligence held conf calls every 3 hours with a team at the Situation Room in the White House to discuss possible problems."

/3

google.com/url?q=https://…
Read 5 tweets
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THREAD: I’ve spent the last few weeks chatting with people about the upcoming #midterm elections. I’d like to share some of what I’ve heard and why this gives me so much hope.🇺🇸
I met these young women while walking my pups in my beachside community. For privacy reasons, I won’t share their real names (let’s call them “Julie” and “Amy”), but they graciously allowed me to share their stories.
One the best parts of walking my “boys” (Bowen and Bynum) is that I get to meet lots of strangers. I mean, who can resist these two?😍

Seriously, the pups break the ice, and as a consequence, I’ve met lots of interesting people.
Read 27 tweets
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Ignore the polls and get out there and #Vote on November 6th. Relying on polling is a relic of a time gone by.
I’m not saying looking at @FiveThirtyEight’s model and charts and stuff isn’t cool, because it is and provides some insight. But no matter what the numbers say, it’s most certainly NEVER an excuse to not #Vote because you feel your peeps are a “lock”
Need nothing further than to point to 2016. Which by the way, @FiveThirtyEight didn’t really have wrong, but the “selected not elected” mindset existed before 2016. Why else would over 100 million people choose NOT to participate in their civic duty to choose their leaders.
Read 21 tweets
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💥IMPORTANT VOTER INFORMATION💥

If you show up to the polls and you are not registered to vote, here is what you can do.

Please retweet this to spread the word.

@jonlovett @jonfavs @TVietor08 #vote #VoterRegistration #BlueWave #BlueWave2018 #VoteSaveAmerica #VotingMatters
17 states plus the District of Columbia offer same day registration (SDR), any qualified resident of the state can register to vote and cast a ballot all in that day.

ncsl.org/research/elect…
Provisional Ballot Laws are laws that require a provisional ballot upon verification of the identity of the voter if a voter fails to present proper identification at the polls or when registering before voter registration deadlines.

ballotpedia.org/State_by_State…
Read 14 tweets
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This is a good article, talking about problems that we have to, that the GOP won't and that we CAN fix! But first, just #Vote damnit!
#SundayMotivation
The Myth of the Lazy Nonvoter
nyti.ms/2CvoRaT
2/"If history is any indicator, only around 40 percent of eligible voters will vote in the midterm elections. Most people assume that voter turnout remains this low because Americans are apathetic and simply don’t want to vote. But it’s more likely that most Americans do want to
3/"vote, and one of the root causes of low turnout is this country’s framework of restrictive voting laws. The United States is unique in allowing state laws to largely govern voting in federal elections. Ever since key federal protections were dismantled by the Supreme Court in
Read 41 tweets

Trending hashtags

#RICO #gapol #PollWorker #FlipItBlue #WeAreNotOkay #TNSEN #Tennessee #TuesdayThoughts #NAFTA #Vote #medtwitter #StepUp #TX07 #2018Midterms #Illinois #TN04 #BeAVoter #VotingRights #CriminalActivists #TX35 #Midterms2018 #TX9 #VotingMatters #SanctuaryCities #VoteSaveAmerica

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