Sarah’s Voter Engagement Message
OUR JOB IS TO STAY IN THE FIGHT
VEC Chair: Sarah Jones
VEC Resist Chair: Diane Dimperio
VEC Tabling Chair: Doris Harvey
VEC MONDAY MESSAGE 7/20/2026
Hello Everyone,
CURRENT AND UPCOMING EVENTS:
*UPCOMING: DWCAC Phone banking Training. Please make plans to join us! Juan Osorio will be holding a training for us at the ACDEC Office (901 NW 8TH AVE, Ste A-3)) on July 27 at 11:30a. We’ll have the instructions and then start phoning at ACDEC with the express idea of continuing to phone at our homes and at our convenience. If you have been previously trained and have done phone banking, please attend as your experience will help our newcomers. You’ll need to bring your laptop (fully charged) and your phone with charging cord. Please sign up at dwcacvec@dwcac-vec.org
*You must have registered by today in order to vote in the August 18 primary. There is still time to register before the midterm elections (deadline: 10/5 – election on 11/3). Tell everyone.
Here are the early voting locations for us:
Supervisor of Elections Office
515 North Main Street
Gainesville, FL 32601Millhopper Branch Library
3145 NW 43rd Street
Gainesville, FL 32606J. Wayne Reitz Union
655 Reitz Union Drive
Gainesville, FL 32611Tower Road Branch Library
3020 SW 75th Street
Gainesville, FL 32608Alachua County Agriculture and Equestrian Center
23100 W Newberry Rd
Newberry, FL 32669Legacy Park Multipurpose Center
15400 Peggy Road
Alachua, FL 32615Hawthorne Community Center
6700 SE 221st St
Hawthorne, FL 32640Santa Fe College
S-029, 3000 NW 83rd St
Gainesville, FL 32606
For a list of the candidates, please check votealachua.gov.
Repeating Event: Join the Badass Feminists at the Oaks Mall every Saturday from 10a-Noon and Sundays at the 39th ST overpass from 3:30-5p.
Make sure to receive the ACDEC newsletters at comms@alachuademparty.com. Also, Join DWCF to be informed about our parent organization at DWCF.org.
*NOTE: Our DWCAC t-shirt sales are now being handled by Fran Towk, who graciously offered to take over for me. Current price is $20.
NOTE - Request from Sheryl: If you want to add an item to the upcoming meeting agenda, please create a new email or text message with “PLEASE ADD TO AGENDA FOR [DATE] MEETING.” The request should not be made in a reply.
*Note: if you hear of upcoming events, please email me (dwcacvec@dwcac-vec.org) so we can participate.
YOU DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
‘Our biggest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our biggest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?”
Marianne Williamson
SOME NEWS, OBSERVATIONS, AND QUOTES:
*NOT SET IN STONE??!! NOT HANDED DOWN BY GOD??!!
A while ago, I became curious about just how money actually works. The more I studied, the more I began to see that the whole financial system was just MADE UP! It’s what human beings have decreed it to be and the rest of us agreeing to the “rules” they set. The truth is that a value on any item is whatever the “seller” and “buyer” agree on. That value is influenced by its availability and a buyer’s desire to own it (much of which is influenced by emotion). I began to discover that most of the financial products that have been developed, such as derivatives, are intended to reduce risk for the investors and, of course, increase their profits.
So, who are these investors? Mostly people who already have a great deal of money. Participation in the stock market is rare for people earning less than $100,000/year. So, how are “We the People” affected? - in our 401K plans which are made up of the profits from stocks and other financial instruments.
Because these “rules” are made up, We the People have been living in a system that consistently favors the wealthy. Here’s a big example: income earned by working people is taxed at a progressive rate up to 37% whereas wealth (on which the wealthy live rather than income from working) often escapes any taxation at all. Another example: Trump’s BB Bill gave huge tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations. All this while We the People struggle even more to provide a decent life for ourselves and our families.
Carrying this thesis even further, we understand that people need some organization to prevent us from preying on one another. However, it’s crucial to see who’s doing the organizing and who benefits. People living under an authoritarian system have been led to believe that they benefit from a single person or a small group of people ruling them. Such systems, however, drag their people into deadly wars for often frivolous reasons and steal their money in the name of supposed security.
So, once We the People understand that human beings create organizational systems, we can realize that we have a stake in the process. Not that it’s easy, but we can make rules, as well. We must understand this responsibility. Rules work only by agreement. The Democratic base strives for rules that provide a decent life for all US people, for protections of our rights, and access to betterment. These are values shared by most people in the US and are not extreme or communistic. Changes will happen only if we push and refuse to accept the delusions pushed on us by those in power whose goal is to stay in power. It’s time for us to YELL
*DUMB AND DUMBER
I’ve been reading lately about concerns that the general public risks dumbing down by not reading actual books and the propensity to use our phones for facts rather than memorizing them. The “Dune” movies have been popular, but I wonder how many of us have actually read the series. The original premise was that artificial beings began to do everything for human beings until these beings were virtually helpless and totally dependent. I’m far from being a Luddite, but I can recognize what it means for a society where most people are no longer able to “do for themselves.” Artificial Intelligence threatens to increase this process. Even my “spellcheck” in Word lets me insert the correct spelling so I don’t have to take the time or effort to look in the dictionary or trust my memory.
Another aspect is the increased propensity to confuse reality and fiction, to convince us that there is no reality. Flat Earth believers rail against a reality that was proven a thousand years ago. We are constantly gaslit with a fiction of millions of non-citizen voters. We’re being pushed into false statistics about crimes by immigrants. As Ivan Drury posits in the Hartman Report on 7/18: “We are being gently, profitably relieved of the requirement to pay attention to anything, and we’re paying a premium for the privilege.” It must be our resolve to keep our brains working by balancing what we’ll do for ourselves and what we’ll allow to be done for us.
KEEP YOUR EYE ON:
*Please consider never purchasing big plastic detergent bottles again! There are many good alternatives available now with dissolvable tablets or sheets shipped in cardboard boxes. Tide’s Evo, for example. It’s an easy and important move; I’ve used Dropp’s products very happily for 2 Years. It’s a real place to start. Drying your clothes with Woolen balls (available at Walmart, among others) works effectively and doesn’t spread a layer of chemicals on them.
* Bridge collapse in Italy. Blame falls on lack of maintenance and faulty construction.
*These people went to jail for the collapse. Blame was placed.
*President Zelensky opted not to reappoint popular Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov as part of a government reshuffle, triggering a major political scandal in Ukraine. Fedorov “cut off unauthorized Russian access to Starlink on the battlefield, expanded the Army of Drones initiative, launched the "Logistics Lockdown" campaign that systematically targeted Russian supply lines, intensified the drone-led siege of occupied Crimea, strengthened air defenses through data-driven reforms, and introduced ambitious military changes, including fixed-term service contracts, higher combat pay, and efforts to overhaul Ukraine's troubled mobilization system.”[Kiev Independent 7/17].
*Paul Krugman revealed in his podcast on 7/14 that a real crunch in the energy disaster is not only the closure of the Straight of Hormuz but the reduction of the ability of refining, especially in Russia.
*Check out the fires in Canada where smoke is causing lots of pain as far away as New York City. This is happening because the climate has changed in the fire area to become too dry for the trees to be healthy. Why is the continued lack of dealing with the reality of climate change being tolerated?
PLEASE STAY INFORMED BY USING OUR ONLINE RESOURCES::
Facebook: Democratic Women’s Club of Alachua County (Admin. Sarah Jones)
Website: DWCAC.net (Admin. Suzy McGinnis)
Please help Suzy and me to serve your interests by viewing the sites, commenting and liking what you see on site, and sending photos and comments for us to post. We love feedback.
Our club mailing Address: DWCAC, PO Box 357579, Gainesville, FL 32635-7579
*Get to know our parent organization at DWCF.org
AND NOW FOR A BIT OF HUMOR:
Daily KOS - David Horsey 5/22/26
Note: if you do not wish to receive messaging from VEC in the future, please email me (dwcac-vec.org) and I will remove you from the VEC mailing list.
Thanks to everyone
Sarah Jones, VEC Chair
ELECTION INFORMATION
Election Alert: Florida HB991 (AKA as the SAVE ACT) which affects voter registration does not go into effect until next January 1, 2027, so the 2026 elections will not be affected.
. If you need to register or change your party affiliation, you’ll need to do so by:
§ For the primaries – 7/20/26
§ For the midterm – 10/5/26
Early Voting Dates: Primary 8/7-15, Midterm 10/24-31
To vote in person, you’ll need an ID that has a signature and photo. Check the list below for acceptable forms of ID:
§ Florida Driver's License
Florida ID Card issued by the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles
United States Passport
Valid Debit or Credit Card with Signature
Military ID
Student ID
Retirement Center ID
Neighborhood Association ID
Public Assistance ID (Social Security or other social services)
Veteran Health ID issued by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs
A license to carry a concealed weapon or firearm issued pursuant to S 790.06.
§ Employee ID issued by any branch, department, agency, or entity of the Federal Government, the state, a county, or a municipality
You may use 2 forms of ID to meet this requirement. If you do not present acceptable ID, you must vote a provisional ballot.
To register, you’ll need to be a U.S. citizen and have:
§ Last four digits of your Social Security Number
To Do:
§ Check your voting status at VoteAlachua.com or by calling the SOE (Supervisor of Elections) Office at (352) 374.5252
§ Make sure your information on your address, Signature of record, and your Driver’s License are current. If your signature is different from the one on your Driver’s License, you should update it by submitting a hard copy of the Voter Registration form.
§ If you have a Florida Driver’s License or ID card, you should add it to your SOE voter file now to be ready for 2027.
Remember: Vote By Mail must be updated every 2 years. Call the SOE Office [352.374.5252] to do this.
Be Ready to Vote in 2027
If you plan to vote in 2027 you will need to have proof of citizenship. We do not know all the details yet, but we know enough to start preparing.
IF YOU HAVE A CURRENT FLORIDA DRIVERS LICENSE OR ID CARD
If you have a Florida Driver’s License or Florida ID with a star on upper right hand corner and, you were a citizen when it was first issued, you have proven to the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles you are a citizen. So, all you need to do is confirm the number on your current card is in your voter file. You can call the supervisor of election to confirm the current number is in your voter file. If it is not you can go to registertovoteflorida.gov. Click on register or update. On the next page you will need to click on both record update and request to replace voter card. Then complete the entire form.
If you have a Florida Driver’s license or ID card with a star in upper right hand corner but were not a citizen when it was first issued - you should update your information.
· Bring your naturalization certificate to the Department of Motor Vehicles along with your social security card and two items with your address on it, if it changed.
· If your current name is not the same as on the naturalization certificate you will need to bring documents that track your name changes
· If you need a replacement social security card you can go to https://www.ssa.gov/number-card/replace-card and apply for one
· If you lost your certificate of naturalization you can apply for a replacement at https://www.uscis.gov/n-565
IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A FLORIDA DRIVERS LICENSE OR ID
If you were born a citizen you will need a current US Passport or an original or Certified Birth Certificate. If you do not have a birth certificate you can request one at
https://www.usa.gov/birth-certificate
If you are a naturized citizen you will need your certificate. If you cannot find your naturalization papers, you may request a replacement at
https://www.uscis.gov/n-565
IF YOUR NAME HAS CHANGED BECAUSE YOU MARRIED
If you changed your name because you got married you will need to provide your marriage license
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/w2w/index.htm and click on the state where you got married. Divorce documents are also there if you need them.
If you need help getting or paying for your ID or following any of these instructions contact Vote Riders. You may phone or text at 866-432-8683, email them at helpline@voteriders.org, or go online to VoteRiders.org/freehelp and complete an application.