Have you checked your mail today? Small Town Actions for a New Democracy (STAND) Election Guides, the only statewide election guide by and for rural Oregonians, is landing in mailboxes this week! As voters face a barrage of election spin, rural Oregonians are sharing paper and digital STAND guides with their neighbors to offer clear information about how people who are displaced by the fires or who were wrongfully evicted can still vote by mail, are leading car caravans to safely drop off ballots, and surveying their local candidates! 
As rumors fly about who can and can’t vote by mail and threats to a fair election escalate, rural Oregonians are taking action to defend democracy, build community, and ensure that everyone who can vote does! Join us to learn from rural community leaders who are:
- Organizing ballot parties, Get Out the Vote car caravans, and picking up their friends’ ballots to help make filling out and dropping off ballots fun, easy, and safe!
- Sharing clear and accurate information about who and what is on the ballot this election, how to make sure your vote counts, and how to bring more people into the work of advancing democracy in rural Oregon!
- Creating strategies to keep temperatures low and make sure our neighbors can still safely vote in case anyone attempts to intimidate voters at the ballot drop sites, post offices, or anywhere else in their communities. Given the way hate and bias crimes spiked around the 2016 election, rural folks are gearing up to keep each other safe!
We can’t predict the future, but we know that when we share strategies together across rural Oregon, we will be better prepared to show up for one another no matter how this election goes! Register here and join us by phone or computer tomorrow, Thursday, October 15th from 6:30-8 PM PST to strategize for the weeks ahead!
If you see anti-democratic activities in your community, call the newly launched Defend Democracy Hotline at (541) 714-3257 or email us at democracy@rop.org! Stay tuned for the Defend Democracy toolkit that is chock full of ideas for making sure folks get to vote, support each other in exercising that right, and be prepared to defend it by documenting and de-escalating anti-democratic actions at mailboxes or official voting dropboxes!