 NEWS FROM THE COCONINO COUNTY DEMOCRATS August 7, 2024 In this edition: Learn how you can contribute to the amazing energy of Democratic campaigns up and down the ticket. Plan to attend our monthly Action Meeting on August 10, and the annual Monsoon Picnic on the 24th. Read about the experience of one of our members who served as a poll worker in the recent primary election. We continue to reach out to voters, serve our community at the Flagstaff Family Food Center, and more in our work to defend democracy – join us!  Dear Warriors, Who’s excited about the 2024 Presidential Election?! Vice President Kamala Harris is in the race, and we are here to help elect the whole Democratic ticket. Join the Northern Arizona Coordinated Campaign and the Coconino County Democrats to canvass, phone bank, write postcards, table at events, and engage your neighbors in courageous conversations. There’s something for everyone, and we need everyone to be involved in the fight for our Democracy.As our Vice President Kamala Harris says, “when we fight we win!” Let’s don our pearls and chucks, or your preferred armor, and get to work. Let’s be joyful warriors for women’s rights, voting rights, public schools, climate change solutions, and the kind of country we where we want to live and raise our families. Sign up now to volunteer for the Coconino County Democratic Party and help us build a Blue Arizona in 2024, #HarrisWalz Laura Carter |
 Saturday, August 10, 10 am – noon NOTE — WE ARE BACK IN THE MURDOCH CENTER!!203 E. Brannen Ave, Flagstaff or via Zoom (link below) We’ll hear from those who are directing our major outreach and get-out-the-vote efforts for the fall election. Find the perfect place for you to lend your assistance! We will start digging into the substance of opposition candidate research from our Strategic Research and Messaging Committee. And you can count on the most up-to-date information from the Harris campaign, as well as the good company of your fellow defenders of democracy, and (of course) donuts! CC Dems is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.Topic: Monthly Action MeetingTime: July 13, 2024 10:00 AM Arizona PLEASE NOTE: NEW ZOOM LINK THIS MONTH!! Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82637584049?pwd=2nmeg5Rhm2IC0i7eKcRMha1ukLg6r1.1 Meeting ID: 826 3758 4049 Passcode: 167779 An Inside Perspective on Working at the Polls by Lea Cox This past primary election I decided to become a poll worker and was assigned to the Aquaplex as a provisional / conditional clerk. My duties involved helping those who were eligible and registered to vote but were outside of their precinct here in the County. I learned so much about how our county tabulates and meticulously tracks each ballot so that none are lost and all are accounted for. We had set up the night before and arrived at the center at 5:00 a.m. The ballots were then brought in, counted, and laid out for the ballot judges could find the proper version to give to the voter. Polls opened at 6:00 a.m. and closed at 7 p.m. At the end of the day we recounted all of the ballots, sealed them up, and two of the workers escorted them to the elections center. It was a great experience and I was privileged to see in person how our County works very hard to maintain safe and secure elections. I will be back to help out with the election in November and perhaps I will see one of you as well. If you are interested in becoming a poll worker yourself visit the link below and you will find all the information you need. Hope you join us! https://www.coconino.az.gov/196/Become-an-Election-Board-Worker Three Simple Ways to Help Win This Election Linda Guarino is coordinating three specific efforts in the next couple of months, each of which is going to make a significant difference for November. Whether you are an experienced volunteer or just looking to dip your toes in the water for the first time, these are easy, well-supported ways to contribute. Please sign up for one or more of these – the enthusiasm and energy are exciting! Day of ActionKick-off to the DNC Convention, August 17Let’s knock some doors and make some calls to tell everyone about the Harris/Walz ticket! We will be launching canvasses at 9 am and at noon from the Coordinated Campaign Office at 121 East Birch Street, Second Floor. Sign up to canvass here.We will be phone banking at 3 pm. You can phone bank at home or join the crowd at the Coordinated Campaign Office. Sign up here.If you haven’t canvassed or phone banked before, this would be a good introduction. People are excited to hear about the Harris campaign and you don’t have to do it alone. We can send you out with an experienced canvasser so you can get experience and gain confidence. Let’s Get Everyone to VoteDid you know that there are 30,664 registered Democrats in Coconino County and that 9,317 of them did not vote in the 2022 General Election? Shockingly, that means we lost 30% of possible votes for our candidates. We cannot afford to lose those votes again this coming November.We are planning a large postcard campaign to these non-voters. We will provide a stamped postcard, address labels, and a text or script explaining why it is so important for everyone in Coconino County to vote. We are asking you to hand write the message and return the postcards to us by September 20. We will mail them to arrive at the same time as the ballots in October. You can sign up to send postcards to your precinct, or to any precinct in the county, here. Please sign up in batches of 50 for larger precincts or all of them for smaller precincts. Help Register New Voters Contest Every Race has identified 175 likely Democrats who are not registered to vote in our area. They send them a letter and registration forms. Now it is our job to follow up by knocking on their doors and encouraging them to follow through and register. If you would like to help with this effort, please email Linda Guarino at or text 928-266-4598. She can give you a subset of names or arrange to go with you. Thanks for joining us – we are all in this together, and together we will win!Join Your Campaign Partners at the Monsoon Picnic Each year, members of the Coconino County Democrats meet in August to celebrate the accomplishments of the past year and to commit to working together to elect Democrats up and down the ballot. This year’s Monsoon Picnic will feature our candidates for November while thanking and celebrating our many volunteers and tireless leaders. Join us at Flagstaff’s Bushmaster Park for the camaraderie, fresh air, and food! We’re providing barbecue, sides, and beverages; if you would like, bring a salad or a dessert (not required). Register at this link. Saturday, August 24, 11 am – 2 pmBushmaster Park, FlagstaffJuly’s Primary Election Is Behind Us — On to the General! The 2024 Primary Election in Arizona took place on July 30, and you can find the results for Coconino County here. We congratulate the winning candidates in contested races, as well as those Democrats who ran unopposed, and we thank all candidates for stepping forward to run and for their willingness to serve.We also appreciate the volunteers here in the County who took part in our voter protection program. We had people observing at a number of polling places on Election Day, and others who watched the tabulation (counting) of ballots at the Elections Center. For the first time, we also had observers taking shifts in the Recorder’s Office, watching how ballots are received and signatures are verified before the envelopes are opened and ballots transported for counting. Voter Services staff in the Recorder’s Office, and Elections staff in the Elections Department, have been both professional and transparent in their work to assure the integrity of our elections and the security of our votes.Now it is time to turn our attention to the general election in November!Turnout for the primary was relatively low in Coconino County – only about 31 % of the County’s 86,000 registered voters returned a ballot. We will, of course, be aiming for much higher turnout in the fall! Our strategy has multiple facets, from registering new voters, to motivating those registered Democrats who have not been consistent voters, to reaching out to and informing voters from any party about our candidates, our policies, and the consequences of this year’s election. Please see the many calls for volunteers throughout this newsletter, and sign up to help. Every one of us can make a difference! Help Get Our Ballot Guide into Voters’ Hands The single largest investment of money and time for campaign communications each cycle is our Ballot Guide (sometimes called the “sample ballot” in the past). This fall’s edition will be even more crucial than usual, given the lengthy ballot and numerous initiatives to be decided. We need a small army of volunteers to help us prepare and stuff the envelopes, as we plan to mail more than 30,000 of these guides to Democrats and Dem-leaning Independents throughout Coconino County.The link below takes you to our signup sheet for office volunteers (who help with all kinds of work, from writing postcards to doing data entry). Scroll down and you will see shifts listed for days in September for envelope prep and envelope stuffing. This is a big project – from running names and addresses for mailing labels, to designing and printing the actual guide, to writing and duplicating the cover letter. And every detail is being carefully planned, like the encouraging message on the front of the envelope and the wording of recommendations on ballot initiatives. In the end, though, we need to put address labels on envelopes and stuff the guides into those 30,000 envelopes. Please consider signing up for a shift or two in our biggest push of the year! Sign Up to Help with Ballot Guide Reaching Voters, One Door at a Time Canvassing – speaking to people in person – has been repeatedly shown to be one of the very most powerful ways to persuade and motivate voters. In our area the Coordinated Campaign is one of the groups managing consistent, well-supported canvassing efforts. Our regional organizer, Collin Gunn, directs this effort in Flagstaff. Right now there are weekly organized canvassing sessions on Saturdays – you can sign up to help at this Mobilize link. You can request to go with an experienced canvasser, so you can see how it works before ever going out on your own.The best way to prepare for canvassing is to download the MiniVAN app on your smartphone. Search for “MiniVAN Touch” and download it – it comes from NGP VAN, which is the Democratic Party’s voter database. When you are working with Collin (or another organizer with the Coordinated Campaign), they will create a list for you – a list of Democratic or Dem-leaning independents constituting your assigned contacts. You will see on your phone the contacts and their addresses, together with lots of background information. You will also see a “script” that lays out how to begin your conversation and what questions to ask. Finally, the app prompts you to record the result of your effort – ranging from “no one answered the door,” to voter expressed a particular candidate preference, to voter expressed a concern. Then you move onto the next voter (and address) on the list! Collin is organizing canvassing in and near Flagstaff every Saturday – sign up at the Mobilize link and give it a try now, while things are low-key, and you will be experienced and ready in time for the October/November push! Help Us Launch Young Voters! Many of you have heard Nancy Branham talk about her work registering future voters at the many high schools in the Flagstaff area. Students can register in advance of their 18th birthday, with the registration becoming active as soon as they actually turn 18. We will have one more big push at the high schools in early fall. At least some of these young people will turn 18 before November 5! If you are willing to spend a day helping to recruit these future voters, please contact Nancy at . Join Us in Our Key Outreach and Voter Education Work This Summer Flagstaff’s community calendar of fantastic festivals and celebrations is in full swing, and the Coconino County Democrats are fully engaged. We’d love to have your help. We are still serving dinner at the Flagstaff Family Food Center on the first Thursday of each month, too. Have you tried our “one-stop-shop” way of signing up to get involved? Keep reading for the link and see all the opportunities to contribute. Volunteer Signup Sheet As our outreach and community activities heat up with the summer and the campaign season, we are using a convenient tool for signing up. This link below takes you to a spreadsheet where you can learn about all of our events and sign up for those you’d like to help with. The tabs at the bottom are by month; click on AUGUST if you’d like to see what we have going that month, for example. Each sheet then presents all of the events for that month, from serving dinner at the Flagstaff Family Food Center, to tabling at one of our summer festivals, to talking to voters at the Sunday markets. Put your name and contact information into the sheet where you’d like to help; no need to email or call or click Submit, because the sheet will be updated and your information will be visible to the organizer as soon as you sign up. Thanks for being part of the fun and the great work we are doing this election year!Volunteer Events and Signup |
| Calendar of Events To share an upcoming event in our bi-monthly newsletter or the monthly events calendar on our website, please email us the details by Friday prior to each newsletter. Fight for Democracy. Protect our Freedoms.Support the 2024 Election. Become a monthly donor today. Donate |
| Paid for by the Coconino County Democratic Party. Donations are political contributions and not tax-deductible. |