No, I really mean it.

To be honest, it’s a beautiful place to call home. Where else are the skyscrapers and tobacco roads almost evenly dispersed? We are the land of HBCUs, where each valued institution has beaten all of the odds. The only place in the world where NASCAR fans wear Dreamville tees. There used to be a time when hating Colin Kaepernick had nothing to do with kneeling but everything to do with Cam Newton singing Sweet Caroline at the end of the night. It’s always been about basketball and barbeque. Once upon a time we were…chill. For the most part.

But I swear, since the the fictional Marty Huggins first uttered the words “It’s a mess” in that awful cult classic parodying North Carolina politics, it seems that we’ve been on a downward electoral spiral that is just as oppressive as it is hilarious.

In the past 4 months, a voter ID requirement has gone from non-existent to law to being struck down, then back to valid law. We’ve proven that electoral fraud will always be a bigger deal than voter fraud and may even get you indicted. We’ve shown you how to gerrymander a landscape of 2,698,019 Democrats, 2,126,829 Republicans and 2,274,542 Unaffiliated voters into 10/13 GOP-run congressional districts. Our local legislative lines ain’t much better.

In North Carolina, we don’t have the luxury of being complacent. While the Supreme Court has determined that many of our voting barriers have been designed with “surgical precision”, we still have to live here. With each election, our stakes rise and the concerted efforts of voter suppression have alerted us to the fact that some folks just don’t want North Carolinians to have an easy time voting. That may be our burden but now it will become the reason that we triumph.

Spread The Vote North Carolina is working to close the gap between registered voters and voter turnout by educating and empowering voters. We believe that smarter voters are frequent voters. Now that having an ID is the key to making your voice heard, we’ve agreed to cover the cost. Since December, we have launched chapters from Greensboro to Greenville, including our first student-led chapter at Livingstone College. We’re committed to training our volunteers so that they can serve with integrity, knowing that we’re equipping our neighbors with the tools to be productive citizens and regular voters.

That’s why we launched our Get Us To 100 campaign. To keep our momentum going in 2019, we want to be in a position to help over 100 Americans secure IDs each week. But we can’t do this critical work without your help. The costs associated with securing IDs have risen as fast as our ability to help folks get them.

We’ve set a goal to raise $12,000 by the end of the month so we can expand our operations, not cut them back. Municipal elections this year (and possibly a special congressional election) will require IDs and we need you to pitch in. Consider your donation to be our janitorial supplies while we work to clean up our mess.

Click the link below to strike a blow against voter suppression in North Carolina.

https://www.crowdpac.com/campaigns/391368/help-100-people-per-week-obtain-ids-to-get-jobs-find-places-to-sleep