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Vote Nevada Update 10-5-2024

Vote Nevada Supporters,

Sample Ballots are in the mail, so we’ve officially entered the 2024 general election! Additionally, you will receive a Ballot Question Guide booklet; if you did not opt out of mail-in voting, you’ll also receive a mail-in ballot.

The Ballot Question Guide includes the complete language of each ballot question, a summary of the question and its effect, and pro and con arguments written by advocates and opponents.

You can access a PDF version of the Ballot Question Guide, a video review of the Ballot Question Guide, a one-page summary of all seven ballot questions, and a Fact-Checking Guide on the Vote Nevada Blog: https://vote-nevada-blog.org/2024-election-information-ballot-question-guide/

Each county elections department website includes early voting dates and in-person voting locations. You can see each county elections department website here: https://www.nvsos.gov/sos/elections/voters/county-clerk-contact-information

Vote Nevada is not providing endorsement sheets this year due to some candidates not receiving interview questionnaires and a lack of transparency around the endorsement processes of some organizations.

We recommend reading and watching candidate and ballot question coverage in our local media from trusted reporters and reliable research institutions. You can use the Fact-Checking Guide for tips on how to find and determine reliable sources.

If you have questions or need help, contact me at sondra.cosgrove@gmail.com

Thank you for being Nevadans with me,

Vote Nevada is now qualified to receive donations through Smith’s Inspiring Donations; you can read more about how to donate to Vote Nevada each time you use your Smith’s loyalty card here: https://www.smithsfoodanddrug.com/i/community/smiths-inspiring-donations

Vote Nevada is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit civic engagement organization. Anyone can become a supporter by emailing info@vote-nevada.org; we have no membership dues. You can now donate to Vote Nevada through PayPal at https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=L423L7FBMMBEA

Vote Nevada Follow Up

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Vote Nevada Supporters,

We usually provide organization endorsement sheets in election years but have decided not to do so this year. We have heard from candidates who did not receive organization questionnaires or were excluded from interviews.

Additionally, organizations must explain their arguments for supporting or opposing the ballot questions to evaluate those positions.

Therefore, we will not share endorsement sheets if we cannot ensure that endorsements are based on transparent, equity, and fact-based processes and arguments.

If you would like to follow an organization’s endorsements, please ask about its decision-making process, and arguments for supporting or opposing candidates and ballot questions.

You can use the Vote Nevada fact-checking guidelines to evaluate messages and arguments used to reach conclusions. See the Fact Checking guidelines here: https://vote-nevada-blog.org/2024-ballot-questions-fact-checking/

Sondra

Vote Nevada: Celebrating Shirley Chisholm & All About Ballot Questions

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Vote Nevada Supporters,

The Secretary of State’s 2024 Guide to the Ballot Questions is now available. You can access it as well as my one-page ballot question explainer and my 2024 Fact Checking Guide here: https://vote-nevada-blog.org/2024-ballot-questions-fact-checking/

A quick reminder to join us tomorrow to celebrate Shirley Chisholm and hear from candidates who ran in this year’s primary election. RSVP here: https://forms.gle/d9ET9ta9hty37hfH6

Thanks for being Nevadans with me,

Sondra

Vote Nevada is now qualified to receive donations through
Smith’s Inspiring Donations; you can read more about how to donate to Vote
Nevada each time you use your Smith’s loyalty card here: https://www.smithsfoodanddrug.com/i/community/smiths-inspiring-donations

Vote Nevada is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit civic engagement
organization. Anyone can become a supporter by emailing info@vote-nevada.org;
we have no membership dues. You can now donate to Vote Nevada through
PayPal at https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=L423L7FBMMBEA

Vote Nevada Update 8/22/2024

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Vote Nevada Supporters,

Just a few updates:

Please consider participating in the Vote Nevada Public Civics Education project. https://nevadacurrent.com/2024/08/19/the-case-for-public-civics-education/

Interim legislative committees are finalizing priorities for the 2025 legislative session. You can review committee hearing recordings and final priorities from the Interim Session page: https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/InterimCommittee/REL/Interim2023.

Vote Nevada meeting recordings and resources are on our blog: https://vote-nevada-blog.org/

Our Shirley Chisholm Down-Ballot Voter Initiative is on our website: https://vote-nevada.org/be-a-down-ballot-voter-initiative/

Governor Tim Walz recently signed a Voting Rights Act in Minnesota, which gives us some ideas about his views on the right to vote: https://fairvote.org/minnesota-voting-rights-act-ensures-a-fair-vote-for-all/

Upcoming events:

Saturday, August 24^th, 10 a.m. to noon, at the A.D. Guy Knowledge Center.

Black Women & Civic Engagement

BWCE 2024

Saturday, September 7^th, 4 to 7 pm, CSN West Charleston Campus, Building K-101.

Women’s Equality Day: Have Things Changed Since Shirley Ran?

WomensEqualityDay2024Instagram

Friday, September 20^th, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., CSN North Las Vegas Campus, June Whitley Center.

Nevada Women in Trades Non-Traditional Careers Summit

4th NAWIT Summit 2024

Thank you for being Nevadans with me,

Sondra

Vote Nevada is now qualified to receive donations through
Smith’s Inspiring Donations; you can read more about how to donate to Vote
Nevada each time you use your Smith’s loyalty card here: https://www.smithsfoodanddrug.com/i/community/smiths-inspiring-donations

Vote Nevada is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit civic engagement
organization. Anyone can become a supporter by emailing info@vote-nevada.org;
we have no membership dues. You can now donate to Vote Nevada through
PayPal at https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=L423L7FBMMBEA

Resources for Small Business Entrepreneurs

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I attended a briefing for small business advocates at the White House last week and wanted to share the resources I received from that meeting.

White House Office of Public Engagement

Office of Public Engagement Updates: Subscribe

White House –Fact Sheets, Blogs, and Guidebooks

Investing in America Agenda Updates: Investing In America | The White House and State Fact Sheets: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah
National Small Business Week Fact Sheet
Three Years of the American Rescue Plan: The American Rescue Plan (ARP): Top Highlights from 3 Years of Recovery | The White House
Climate Capital Guidebook

Small Business Administration Resources

SBA and its network of partners offer free or low-cost counseling, training, and information sharing on the tools you need to start or grow your business. Find your local SBA District Office or Resource Partner here, and please do not hesitate to be in touch to learn more about SBA resources available for small business owners and entrepreneurs, including:

Digital Investing in America Small Business Hub: Visit the Hub for details on how your small business might access Investing in America grants, contracts, rebates, and other opportunities. Information includes free guides and resource overviews, examples of small businesses that have accessed funding; links to valuable SBA resources, such as business loans and free business counseling to help you pursue opportunities.
Capital Access: Access to various lending resources and information for small business owners.
- Start by researching our flagship business loan programs to determine which SBA-guaranteed loan program is best for your business.
- Get matched to potential lender funding with competitive rates and fees through the Lender Match Program.
- A new SBA rule removes restrictions on SBA loan programs that currently prevent many returning citizens from being eligible for SBA-backed loans to start or grow a business. You can find the details of this announcement here.
Government Contracting and Business Development: SBA provides several programs to help small businesses win federal contracts. The federal government uses special programs to help small businesses win at least at 23% of all federal contracting dollars each year.
- The Empower to Grow Program provides individualized coaching and training to help disadvantaged small businesses and others grow with government contracts.
Entrepreneurial Development: Access a network of programs and services that support the training and counseling needs of small business, including:
- Small Business Development Centers
- SCORE
- The Association of Women’s Business Centers
- T.H.R.I.V.E. Emerging Leaders Reimagined
- SBA Cyber Tools and Resources
Office of Disaster Recovery & Resilience (ODR&R) is to connect individuals, homeowners and renters, small businesses, and private non-profits with SBA disaster assistance programs and improve disaster recovery outcomes and economic resilience by helping communities prepare for, respond to, recover from, and mitigate against disasters of all types.
- Rapid Declaration
- SBA Implemented Law Enhancing Ability to Declare Disasters and Deliver Support to Rural Communities
- Increased Loan Amounts for Homeowners and Renters
- 12-month deferral of first payment with zero (0%) interest accrual
- Expanded Mitigation Eligibility

Sondra

Vote Nevada Update 7/14/2024

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Vote Nevada Supporters,

Yesterday, we had our second successful Practice Ranked Choice Voting Zoom event. Thank you to everyone who attended. Attendees asked great questions, including one about how the county clerks and registrars of elections feel about implementing ranked-choice voting.

Luckily, Carson City Clerk Scott Hoen attended and gave his perspective as a clerk. I spoke with Lorena Portillo, who took over for Joe Gloria as the Clark County elections administrator, so I could share what Lorena told me. She affirmed that our voting machines include software to manage ranked-choice elections. Still, the software only allows ranking for up to 3 candidates, so we will need a software upgrade to manage 5 candidates. This will resemble our upgrades to the mail-in ballot signature verification system.

The more significant issues, and Scott’s response, focused on funding for our election operations, from voter registration to counting mail-in ballots to voter education. We have adopted many election system upgrades over the last twenty years, yet our legislature has often not adequately funded implementation.

Automatic voter registration at the DMV is one example. We register thousands of people to vote automatically unless the voter opts out. Yet, we spend almost nothing to ensure new voters can access the civics information needed to become confident voters. We also devote nothing to virtual and in-person practice opportunities where voters can practice casting an in-person or mail-in ballot.

Creating voting barriers for voters who need civics education is eerily like a time when we used literacy tests to prohibit Black Americans from voting. And keeping people in the dark about our election processes allows conspiracies to blossom and grow out of control.

A related unfortunate affliction of our political system is how expensive it is to engage in direct democracy opportunities. Participating in our ballot question process is prohibitively expensive, which means the political parties and wealthy community members have full access, while average Nevadans have almost none. Organizations and individuals with money can pay lawyers, advertising agencies, and media outlets to shape the reform narrative. Meanwhile, grassroots engagers have minimal influence over this tool of direct democracy.

Ballot Question 3’s grassroots supporters face this problem. We are trying to offer as much voter education and chances to practice ranked choice voting as possible but with minimal funding.

We are doing our best, so please take a little time to learn about the Ballot Question 3 reforms and participate in a practice ranked-choice voting election.

Here is yesterday’s Practice Ranked Choice Voting Election event recording: https://vote-nevada.news/Practice-RCV-July-13

We have three in-person sessions to practice ranked choice voting on July 16th in Reno and July 20th and 27th in Las Vegas. Please RSVP here to attend: https://forms.gle/EmztaurQwE7mnmsm7

Here are the resources related to ranked-choice voting I sent after our first meeting: https://vote-nevada-blog.org/2024/07/06/practice-ranked-choice-voting-update-7-6-2024/

Thank you for being Nevadans with me,

Sondra

Vote Nevada is now qualified to receive donations through Smith’s Inspiring Donations; you can read more about how to donate to Vote Nevada each time you use your Smith’s loyalty card here: https://www.smithsfoodanddrug.com/i/community/smiths-inspiring-donations

Vote Nevada is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit civic engagement organization. Anyone can become a supporter by emailing info@vote-nevada.org; we have no membership dues. You can now donate to Vote Nevada through PayPal at https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=L423L7FBMMBEA

Ranked Choice Voting Practice Elections

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Vote Nevada Supporters,

I hope everyone is staying cool and safe until the heat starts to come down this weekend. If you are looking for something to do Saturday evening, please join us via Zoom to practice ranked-choice voting in a mock election. A little teaser, it’s a sports-related mock election~ You can RSVP here for the Zoom July 13^th, 5:30 to 7:00 PM, event: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUlcuGppjkjG9fAtyz7onKSgnWJyslbzXOI#/registration

Starting next week, we have a series of in-person ranked choice voting mock elections scheduled in Reno, East Las Vegas, and on the Historic West Side. Now is the perfect time to ask questions and clarify anything you may have heard about rank-choice voting.

You can RSVP for any of the in-person ranked choice voting mock election events here: https://forms.gle/ttUoGu2dF8kUbwmV8

Options to learn about ranked choic voting

In August, Vote Nevada will focus on civics education and civic engagement. We must start reaching out to our new voters, both first-time and new-to-the-state voters, before early voting begins in October. Every state manages its elections differently, so even folks who have been voting for many years in other states and just moved to Nevada will need some basic information about our flavor of democracy.

Our voter education and engagement project is called the Shirley Chisholm Democracy Initiative. Because who’s a big Shirley Chisholm fan? Me!

No matter how many political obstacles she faced, Shirley never gave up on voting, running for office, and engaging in advocacy. Shirley Chisholm Democracy Initiative Project.

Stay tuned for the Shirley Chisholm Democracy Initiative events and resources!

Thank you for being Nevadans with me,

Sondra

Vote Nevada is now qualified to receive donations through
Smith’s Inspiring Donations; you can read more about how to donate to Vote
Nevada each time you use your Smith’s loyalty card here: https://www.smithsfoodanddrug.com/i/community/smiths-inspiring-donations

Vote Nevada is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit civic engagement
organization. Anyone can become a supporter by emailing info@vote-nevada.org;
we have no membership dues. You can now donate to Vote Nevada through
PayPal at https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=L423L7FBMMBEA

Practice Ranked Choice Voting Update 7/6/2024

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Vote Nevada Supporters,

Today was our first Vote Nevada RCV Practice Election Meeting! Here is the video recording and all the links and data cited in the presentation.

Meeting Recording: https://vote-nevada.news/Practice-RCV-July-6-2024

Alaska 2022 General Election Tabulation: https://www.youtube.com/live/egMMy1QGqRQ?si=qw7o7A0egClPukWX

Alaska Department of Elections: https://www.elections.alaska.gov/election-information/#RankedChoice

Alaska Department of Elections, Election Results Data: https://www.elections.alaska.gov/election-results/

Alaska Coalition to Oppose the Repeal of Open Primaries & Ranked Choice Voting: https://mustreadalaska.com/strange-bedfellows-pro-ranked-choice-voting-coalition-has-democrat-party-socialist-santa-and-wasillas-rep-jesse-sumner/

Rank the Vote Recording: https://rankthevote.us/learn/

The number of mail-in ballots thrown out and not counted in the 2024 primary election: https://www.nvsos.gov/sos/home/showpublisheddocument/14110/638544778970800000

The PowerPoint Presentation PDF: Practice Ranked Choice Voting Election

Vote Nevada Dispelling Misinformation about Ranked Choice Voting: https://vote-nevada.news/Dispelling-Misinformation-RCV-BQ3

Practice Session Dates: July 13th via Zoom, July 16th in-person in Reno, July 20th in-person in East Las Vegas, and July 27th in-person in West Las Vegas.

RSVP for the remaining RCV practice sessions: https://forms.gle/YTqN8Mx4jjHBaT8N6

Thank you for being a Nevadan with me,

Sondra

Vote Nevada Update 6/29/2024

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Vote Nevada Supporters,

If you missed our first two Summer of Civics 2024 kick-off meetings,
you can always watch the recordings.

Doug Goodman joined us on June 22nd to review our primary election data. Watch here: https://vote-nevada.news/Primary-Election-Data-2024

Walter Olson joined us on June 29th to dispel misinformation about ranked-choice voting and Ballot Question 3. You can watch the recording here: https://vote-nevada.news/Dispelling-Misinformation-RCV-BQ3

Please join us to practice ranked choice voting via mock elections in July.
We have two online mock elections and three in-person mock elections. Sign up
for as many as you’d like to attend here: https://forms.gle/TcU2dRRnwaok3nzGA

RCVElections

Thank you for being Nevadans with me,

Sondra

Vote Nevada is now qualified to receive donations through
Smith’s Inspiring Donations; you can read more about how to donate to Vote
Nevada each time you use your Smith’s loyalty card here: https://www.smithsfoodanddrug.com/i/community/smiths-inspiring-donations

Vote Nevada Update 6/20/2024

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Vote Nevada supporters,

I am happy to report that voter turnout did go up from 11.5% to 19.11%, which is better but is still very low. https://silverstateelection.nv.gov/vote-turnout/

And, despite turnout numbers being low, we had 6,772 mail-in ballots that needed a signature verification and 3,462 ballots that will not be counted due to an unverified signature: https://www.nvsos.gov/sos/home/showpublisheddocument/14116/638544779380317129

General election get-out-the-vote and voter education efforts must start now to ensure the highest possible turnout and the lowest possible number of mail-in ballots being thrown out. There are many reasons voters did not turn out, so many strategies are needed to convince voters that elections and their votes matter. It is not acceptable to just label groups as “not real voters.” We must address all barriers to voting.

Some voters are interested in specific issues, while others are looking for candidates they can identify with. Some voters need guidance on how Nevada’s elections work. Understanding what happened in the primary from a data perspective will be useful as we begin this journey.

We are, therefore, happy Doug Goodman from Sparks NV will be joining us this Saturday, June 22nd, via Zoom, from 9 to 10 a.m., to crunch the numbers from the primary election. Doug is the Executive Director of Nevadans for Election Reform, which offers awesome voter registration data from 2014 to 2024. You can RSVP for this Zoom meeting here:

t.ly/gqD4M

Vote Nevada Summer of Civics programming will continue with events focused on democracy broadly, including increasing participation in elections and governance and direct democracy through ballot petitions. So, our next presentation will be via Zoom on June 29th, 9:00 to 10:00 AM, with special guest Walter Olson from the Cato Institute. This meeting is focused on misinformation related to ranked-choice voting. If you’d like to know more, please join us. You can RSVP here:

t.ly/rVJIj

If you are in the Reno area, Indivisible Northern Nevada is hosting an event tomorrow:

Majority Over MAGA – Restore Roe

Date: Friday, June 21 TIME: 4:30 – 5:30

LOCATION: 5310 Kietzke Ln (adjacent to Congressman Amodei’s Reno office)

REGISTER HERE: https://mobilize.us/s/kpPltD

June 24 marks two years since the Dobb’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade and federal constitutional protections for abortion. Join us as we put a spotlight on reproductive rights and extremism. This is about our freedom to decide whether, when, and with whom to have a family.

In July, Vote Nevada is hosting a series of ranked-choice voting mock elections via Zoom and in-person to answer questions about the process through the see it, say it, do it method of learning. You can attend as many of these events as you’d like via this form: https://forms.gle/TcU2dRRnwaok3nzGA

Stay tuned for more civic engagement events in August and September.

Thank you for being Nevadans with me,

Sondra

Vote Nevada is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit civic engagement organization. Anyone can become a supporter by emailing info@vote-nevada.org; we have no membership dues. You can now donate to Vote Nevada through PayPal at https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=L423L7FBMMBEA