Florida: Final Update

7262 doors

327 voters registered

183 returning citizens registered

It’s July 1, and in the next 16 months we in Common Purpose are going to do all we can to right our capsized democracy. We will fight and push and work and work and work to register voters, mobilize voters, raise and contribute funds, educate and be educated, expand the communities being served and heard and amplified, and strengthen our ties with one another. It’s common purpose time, small C, small P.

We just completed a 21-day push to register returning citizens formerly incarcerated in Florida. Over three weeks, 30 CPers led by Amy Sommers, Maria Abando, Jordan Goldwarg, Bert Greenwood, and Dan Roach, and in partnership with Florida folks, knocked on 7262 doors and either talked with or left materials at almost all of them. In this work, we registered or updated 327 voters – of which 183 were returning citizens, and set in potential motion countless other ripples of impact. This is the essential, hard, hot, tiring, draining, exhausting work of democracy. Real change comes only with real sacrifice, real cost, and real risk. The new poll-tax law adopted by Florida Republicans was scheduled to go into effect today, but I am hopeful that it will get thrown out in the courts as in conflict with the 24th Amendment to the US Constitution. Regardless, we will be back in Florida in future months.