Voters Decided!
And now we have to take action to protect the results.
We are seeing an undemocratic power grab this week — an attempted coup. Trump and his team are putting pressure on Republican state leaders to back his #fakefraud claims and deny the election results. They are pressuring the (Republican) Secretary of State in Georgia to resign, trying to make him a scapegoat for Biden’s win in Georgia. Mitch McConnell, Republican Senate Majority Leader, has made statements that are supportive of these #fakefraud efforts.
Undemocratic power grabs work when people like us get dispirited and feel helpless. We are NOT helpless. We have the power to stop this - if we take action. When the public refuses to accept the coup as legitimate, coups fall apart. There are many good signs that institutions and people in power are not going along with Trump’s efforts, but we should not take this for granted. Power and pressure are surely being exerted behind the scenes and out of public view, so we need to stay vigilant and communicate our views.
Here are actions you can take right now:
1
Continue with affirmative messaging around the Biden-Harris victory and transition, along with celebrating democracy.
Click here for a list of hashtags to use on social media.
Click here for a list of sample messages and image libraries for graphics.
2
Activate your networks to get Business, Religious, Community and Civic Leaders to contact politicians and tell them it’s time to move forward and respect the voters’ decisions.
Research shows that coup efforts are defeated when business and civic leaders signal to the public and to politicians they don’t want the disruption and violence that comes from a coup.
Right now, many Republican leaders at state and federal levels are being pressured by Trump and his allies to support a misinformation narrative around election fraud and some are caving in.
We all need NOW to reach out directly or indirectly to let Republican leaders know you want stability and a peaceful transition, and therefore want them to acknowledge Joe Biden as our next President.
We also need to let business, civic and religious leaders we know that the time is NOW to speak up publicly to affirm the integrity of the election and our democratic process and encourage everyone to move #forwardtogether to create a #ReunitedStates.
You don’t need to have political connections or know a CEO to have an impact - remember the principle of “six degrees of separation” - the most important thing is to spread the message like water in a flood so that it flows everywhere.
Click here for details about how to do this, including scripts and messaging guidance.
3
Support state election workers and officials who are standing up to the pressure from Trump and his enablers.
We need to give public and private support to everyone who is refusing to yield to bullying and threats, especially Republican officials who are being pressured by their own party to become fall guys and gals for Trump’s loss.
We recommend three channels to show support for these heroes of democracy:
Send tweets, videos, memes and other social media messages of support to state secretaries of state and election officials for taking a stand for our democracy.
Send postcards thanking them to their main state office.
If you are a parent, teacher or youth leader, ask your students or kids to draw and write messages to send to the Secretary of State in your state thanking them for counting every vote and taking a stand for democracy. Please let us know if you are doing this, as we would like to create some PR around this activity. Please take photos and document both the process of creating these messages and the messages themselves when they are done. Please send us photos so we can post and share them to give them even more visibility.
Click here for sample messages.
Click here for a list of Secrectary of State in battleground states and their mailing addresses.
4
Work to defeat misinformation.
The most important guidance here is: don’t repeat, retweet, or forward false claims, even to dispute them. Doing that would help to spread the pollution.
More specifically:
repeat affirmative statements about the election and its outcomes and use affirmative hashtags.
offer key facts that confound the narrative of systematic fraud and send people to verified links with accurate information.
offer messages that make clear the stakes of accepting a false narrative that undermines confidence in our national electoral system.
Find detailed messaging guidance HERE.
5
Connect with our frontline partners in protecting democracy, Choose Democracy and Hold The Line.
Choose Democracy is helping to coordinate collective action to protect the election and save democracy. Their team has decades of experience working with groups committed to nonviolent resistance throughout the world.
Plug into their work by texting “CHOOSE” to 50409, following them on Twitter and Instagram, and adding yourself to their emails at https://choosedemocracy.us/. Encourage others to do the same.
Hold The Line is a group of scholars and democracy activists who came together to pool their deep knowledge of how democracy successfully defeats illegitimate power grabs into a guide called Hold The Line: A Guide to Defending Democracy. It’s designed to help people from all walks of life take action to ensure that this election is free and fair and the results respected. They have also been issuing regular guidance with information and messaging resources. Their most recent guidance can be found here.
6
Connect to Eleven Three.
Please follow us on Instagram or join our collaborative, cross partisan sandbox to support democracy here at Eleven Three!
We email our network often with the latest on what you can do to protect the election results throughout the coming weeks. Our work will not end on Inauguration Day - we are committed to continuing to work on behalf of democracy. We also communicate on a Slack channel where you can connect to additional insights into what’s happening and opportunities to use your expertise, networks, time and funds to support democracy.