Dear MoveOn member,
This isn’t hyperbole: Our country is on a knife’s edge.
On one side is democracy—the messy, loud, beautiful idea that power belongs to the people and that every one of us gets a say.
On the other side is authoritarianism. And it has powerful friends.
MAGA billionaires. Big Tech oligarchs. The richest, most connected people on the planet, who have decided that a country run by and for them is a better deal than a country run by and for us. They’re building the platforms that shape what we see and believe. They’re pouring millions into buying our elections, while our government rolls back voting rights and makes voting harder for millions of Americans.
They have more money than we could ever raise. They have more lawyers, more lobbyists, more algorithms.
But here’s what they don’t have: us.
There are millions more of us than there are of them. And when we act together, our power is bigger than anything their money can buy. We’ve proven it. No Kings in March was the largest single-day protest in American history.
The question has never been whether we have more power. It’s whether we’ll use it.
On October 17, we will.
No Kings: Vote Early is a nationwide day of action to turn people power into voter power, and MoveOn is essential to making it happen. We’re one of the core organizations coordinating No Kings, and our team is the one working directly with the volunteer hosts who will make October 17 a reality in communities across the country. Without that support, volunteers on the ground simply can’t organize it all on their own. Events won’t be as strong, and they won’t reach as many people.
Chip in $9 right now to power No Kings: Vote Early on October 17.
Here’s what makes October 17 so powerful: Voting is contagious.
People don’t decide whether to vote in a vacuum. We take our cues from the people around us, like our neighbors, our friends, and our families. When voting feels like something “people like us” do, we’re more likely to do it too.
Researchers have found this again and again: Seeing others vote, or simply hearing that they plan to, makes people more likely to vote themselves. The effect even spreads within households. When one person is encouraged to vote, the people they live with become more likely to vote as well.1
That’s why October 17 is designed to make early voting visible, social, and impossible to miss:
- Loud, visible rallies in town squares and busy intersections, reaching people walking by who aren’t sure they’ll vote this year.
- Block parties and park parties with music, art, and speakers, where neighbors cheer for people who’ve already voted and help everyone else make a plan to vote early.
- Backyard cookouts and potlucks where free food brings the whole street together.
- Honk-and-waves and overpass signs telling entire communities when early voting opens and how to do it.
- Walks to the polls where run clubs, book clubs, knitting circles, and pickleball groups go out and vote together.
- Human formations spelling VOTE photographed from above, big enough to see from the sky.
Every person who votes early on October 17 becomes a signal to everyone they know. One voter becomes a household. A household becomes a block. A block becomes a movement.
And at every event, event leads will sign people up to protect the vote, because when our elections are under threat, it’s up to all of us to ensure every vote is counted.
That’s what the oligarchs are afraid of: ordinary people, in every corner of the country, showing up for each other.
But we need your financial support to pull it off. MoveOn’s team is working one-on-one with volunteer hosts across the country. We get them set up, train them, safety-plan with them, and make sure every event has what it needs to succeed. It’s unglamorous work. It’s also the difference between an idea and a movement.
The billionaires are betting that we’ll stay home, that we’ll be too tired, too cynical, or too focused on doomscrolling to show up.
Let’s prove them wrong, together.
Thanks for all you do.
–Adrienne, Emily, Alexis, Kenia, and the rest of the team
P.S. Events are already going up on the map. Find one near you or host your own — and if you can, help us fund the organizing behind all of it: Donate $9.
Source:
1. “Is Voting Contagious? Evidence from Two Field Experiments,” Cambridge University Press, February 1, 2008
https://www.cambridge.org/
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