Kansas City, MO — Let America Vote will open a field office in Virginia and build up operations in a dozen more states in a major expansion of its nationwide effort to defend and expand voting rights.

The expansion will build on grassroots-driven, voting-rights focused successes in both the 2017 and 2018 election cycles, and give Let America Vote a truly national platform for advancing free, fair and accessible elections.

“Let America Vote proved in the November elections that when you make voting rights a political issue, you can win on it,” Let America Vote Founder and Chairman Jason Kander said. “I’m very proud of what we accomplished.”

“But the elections also showed how much work still must be done on voting rights,” Kander said. “Politicians tried to rig elections to choose their voters, instead of allowing voters to choose their politicians. I’m proud to expand Let America Vote to take on vote suppressors across the country and replace them with pro-democracy candidates up and down the ballot.”

For 2019 and beyond, Let America Vote will:

Open a field office in Virginia to finish the work we started in 2017 and help give Gov. Ralph Northam a pro-voting rights majority in the General Assembly

Continue operations in Georgia, Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire to build on the pro-democracy momentum created in 2018

Establish operations in eight additional states to organize voting-rights supporters and push legislative efforts. These states will be: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin

Create a Let America Vote college chapter in all 50 states

Expand our Cap, Gown, Vote! high school voter registration program beyond the 21 mayors currently involved in the initiative

Push Congress to pass proactive federal voting-rights legislation

“With this ambitious expansion, Let America Vote will be positioned to have an even bigger impact than we did in 2018, when we helped 100 voting-rights supporters win elections,” Let America Vote President Abe Rakov said. “By putting staff on the ground in 13 states and organizing volunteers across the country, we’ll be able to take on voter suppression everywhere.”

Let America Vote’s 2019 plans follow on a successful five-state effort in 2018 in which more than 1,100 volunteers knocked over 340,000 doors to help elect 100 pro-democracy leaders. LAV’s efforts contributed to electing Democratic majorities in the New Hampshire House and Senate and a supermajority in the Nevada state Assembly. Prior to that, LAV’s 2017 successes included helping elect seven new legislators and Gov. Ralph Northam in Virginia, and Manchester, N.H., Mayor Joyce Craig.

Since its launch in February 2017, Let America Vote has attempted more than 1 million voter contacts, nearly 700,000 people have signed up online to join the cause, and raised more than $5 million.

Let America Vote launched in February 2017 to fight back against proposals across the country that make it harder for eligible voters to exercise their constitutional right to cast a ballot. Whether it’s extreme identification requirements, questionable purges of voter rolls, voter intimidation, new and extreme voter registration processes, or anything that makes voting harder, Let America Vote will be there to lead the way against it. Its chair is Jason Kander, the former Missouri Secretary of State.

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