00:00Welcome to Paint the Polls Black, which is a voter awareness, voter registration, and voter
00:05mobilization initiative. It's being supported by the Sundial Group of Companies, which includes
00:12Essence, the Global Black Economic Forum, Girls United, Afropunk, Refinery29, BeautyCon,
00:21and the New Voices Foundation. Our goal is to educate, mobilize, and register voters to take
00:27action this November and into the future. For some of you who have been with us for the past
00:32several weeks, we hosted our first town hall in the beginning of August with Congresswomen Jasmine
00:39Crockett and Chantel Brown, Bakari Sellers, Van Lathan, Lene Vanay, and kicking us off for the
00:46very first town hall we had, the one and only D-Nice. Tonight, we are hosting our sixth of eight town halls
00:54where we will be focusing on early voting. We are exactly three weeks away, or 21 days away,
01:02if you like, from Election Day, and we want to walk you through what it means to vote early and why
01:08it's important to vote early. A few housekeeping rules. This is a nonpartisan call focused on voter
01:15registration and mobilization. Further, this is not a fundraising call. There are many other events
01:20that are focused on fundraising. We're here to provide awareness and information for all of you
01:25to make sure that you can actively engage in this year's election. We will also be answering your
01:30questions, so please put your questions in the chat, and we will try to get it to as many questions as we
01:35can as we do every week. Also, there is a link for voter registration. The deadlines in some states have
01:42passed, but not all states, and you can still register in some states. If you are registered, also,
01:49we're asking you to please make sure that you're still on the roster. You can go to Paint the
01:53Polls Black. You can also go to vote.org to make sure that you get information about registration,
02:00and you can check your registration. Finally, sit back, relax, and enjoy this town hall. Tonight,
02:07we are missing our very own Ebony McMorris. She unfortunately can't be with us because she's traveling,
02:14but we are going to continue the show as planned. Early voting, as many of you know, think back to
02:212020. You all remember the vibe four years ago. COVID was rampant, but it was so important for so
02:29many of us to cast our votes, and we decided that we couldn't, of course, go to the polls in some
02:34cases, and we couldn't interact with our family and friends, and we voted by mail. Many of us voted by
02:40mail. Early voting had such a renaissance in 2020 that the percentage of people who casted their
02:47ballots by mail grew to 46%, more than doubling the number of people who had voted early in 2016.
02:56Specifically, in 2020, approximately 60% of Democrats, 6-0, and 32% of Republicans voted by mail.
03:06There was a huge increase in 2020. Early voting, as many of us know, is not new. We have been voting
03:14early in some format since the founding of our country, and voting has held over, as many of you
03:20know, over the course of several days so that voters in many parts of the country could have ample time
03:26to travel to town or certain county courthouses to cast their ballots. But what does it actually mean
03:34when we say to vote early? Well, early voting references a few different ways in which you can cast
03:41your ballots. You have in-person voting, early voting, as the name suggests. It means that you can go before
03:48election day and cast your votes at a local polling place. There is also, in addition to in-person early
03:55voting, there is also mail-in voting, which is when you submit your ballot via the mail.
04:01In some states, anyone can vote via the mail, while in other states, voting by mail is restricted
04:09to certain circumstances. We're going to show you a map right now that showcases the differences in
04:15early voting throughout the country. The states that are highlighted in the color blue
04:21means that all voters in those states have the options to vote early in-person and by mail.
04:29So where you see all of the blue, if you live in one of those states, you can vote early in-person
04:37as well as by mail. Now, if you live in the states that are colored yellow, that means that you have
04:45the option to vote early in-person, but you have to be eligible to vote by mail. And then finally,
04:54the states that are in red represent states where there is no option to vote early in-person
05:01and to vote by mail, there has to be an eligible reason. So I want to keep that up for just a little
05:07while longer. If you look at the blue, you have options to vote early in-person and by mail and is
05:13available to all voters. And if you vote early in-person, it's available to you if you live in the
05:20yellow states. And the red states, unfortunately, early voting is not allowed in those states
05:26except under certain circumstances. So now that we understand the landscape, let's talk about who
05:35is eligible to vote early or who has voted early. It's probably the better way to frame it.
05:43As of today, more than 5 million people, 5 million, have already cast their votes through the mail or
05:52in-person nationally. Early voting has already started in many states, although the exact deadlines
05:59of when you can request an in-person ballot, must submit a ballot, or when you can start going online
06:06differs by state. While in 2020, states made early voting easier because of the pandemic,
06:12over the past few years, unfortunately, some states have made it much more difficult to cast your
06:19votes early in this election. Throughout tonight, we will be showcasing information and deadlines
06:26about when you can vote. And we will also be highlighting the states that each speaker is
06:33representing. So for example, I currently live in New York. I'm a New Yorker. So we want to show you
06:39this slide that highlights some of the important deadlines to know for those who live in New York.
06:44So as you can see, Saturday, October 26 is the last day for voter registration in-person or online
06:51if you live in New York. And then the last day to request a mail ballot is Saturday, October 26. And then
06:59the deadline for mail ballots to be postmarked is November 5. The very first day for in-person voting,
07:06early voting is Saturday, October 26, a few days before election day. And then the last day is Sunday,
07:15November 3. And of course, as we all know, election day is on Tuesday, November 5.
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